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The Fatal Barter 



WORKS OF 

W.L.Watkinson,D.D. 

The Fatal Barter 

and other Sermons. 12mo, cloth, net, #1.00. 

Frugality in the Spiritual Life 

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Brief Essays that make for character. 12mo, 
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The Fatal Barter 



And Other Sermons 



By 

WILLIAM L. WATKINSON, D. D., LL. D. 
w 

Author of "The Blind Spot," "The 
Supreme Conquest" etc. 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 
London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1909, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



J5X? 333 



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MY TRUSTED FRIEND 



CONTENTS 

I. The Fatal Barter 9 

Jeremiah xxxvi. 32. 

II. The Sufficiency of the Gospel ... 27 

Revelation xxii. I, 2. 

III. Suppressed Discipleship • ... 44 

John xix. 38, 39. 

IV. The Divine Coercion of Evil 6$ 

Psalm lxxvi. 10. 

V. The Respective Claims of Fact and Theory . 80 

John iii. 4; vi. 52; 1 Cor. xv. 35. 

VI. The Sigh of the Sincere . . . .96 

Psalm cxxxix. 23, 24. 

VII. The Prophetic Element . . . . no 

Exodus xiii. 21. 

VIII. The Sin of Self-confidence . . . .125 

Psalm xix. 13. 

IX. The Implications of the Resurrection . . 141 

Acts xvii. 18. 

X. Christ and Abnormal Life . • • .156 

Luke xix. 10. 

XL The Standardization of Character • .170 
Ephesians iv. 13. 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

XII. The Reproach of the Gospel . . .186 

Numbers xvi. 14. 

XIII. The AbsoLUTE Good ... • • .202 

Proverbs x. 22. 

XIV. The Spade-work of the Kingdom • • .216 

1 Kings v. 15. 

XV. The Unreasonableness of Fear . • .231 

Psalm cxii. 7. 

XVI. Limitation and Co5peration . • . 243 

I Chronicles xxii. 14. 



THE FATAL BARTER 

Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the 
scribe, the son of Neriah ; who wrote therein from the mouth of 
Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of 
Judah had burned in the fire : and there were added besides unto 
them many like words. — Jer. xxxvi. 32. 

RECALL the situation at the moment of this 
incident. Jeremiah had rebuked the cor- 
ruptions of the court of Judah, warned the 
nation against forming an alliance with Egypt, 
and prophesied the approaching Babylonish cap- 
tivity. His denunciations were written upon a roll 
by Baruch the scribe. Jehoiakim sent for the roll, 
and it was read to him as he sat in the winter 
palace. He was angry, cut the scroll with a pen- 
knife, and cast the shreds into the fire. Now fol- 
lows our text. Another scroll is prepared contain- 
ing all the words of the cremated document ; " and 
there were added besides unto them many like 
words." We suggest, then, that a real parallel 
exists between the contemptuous rejection of the 
scroll by Jehoiakim and the rejection of revelation 
by many to-day ; and we also desire to show that, 
so far from anything being gained by such rejec- 
tion, all the old problems revive in exaggerated 

9 



10 THE FATAL BARTER 

forms. We may decline the explanations, threaten- 
ings, and hopes of these sacred pages; yet the 
enigmas of life are still with us, and they appear 
in forms deeper and darker than ever. Let us il- 
lustrate this in several cardinal particulars. 

I. The Genesis and Design of the World. 
These constitute one of the first problems pressing 
for solution. Revelation declares that the world 
in which we find ourselves, and wherein we must 
work out our destiny, is the creation of the living, 
intelligent, and omnipotent God ; that in Him it 
lives, moves, and has its being ; and that He 
governs it to a wise, just, and benevolent end. 
Many find this explanation entirely unsatisfactory, 
and reject it ; but, having refused the interpreta- 
tion of revelation, are we in any better position in 
relation to the question of the origin, meaning, 
and end of things ? Can we discover any more 
reasonable explanation of the source of the world, 
of its government and design ? Hitherto we have 
not succeeded in doing so. It has been said by a 
German sceptic that "The sun is the supreme 
source of all our activity, both physical and intel- 
lectual. . . . Yes, were a religion of Nature 
still possible, we could not choose an object more 
worthy of our worship than the luminary adored 
by our ancestors." So far as we know, no better 
explanation of things may be expected from the 
rationalistic quarter. But does this relieve the 
mystery of creation, nature, and humanity ? We 
think not. To conclude that this world of mani- 



THE FATAL BARTER 11 

fold wonder and beauty ; this human race, with 
reason, science, love, and piety ; these long ages 
of history, implying harmony and design, — that 
all has arisen like a vapour out of the fires of the 
sun, is surely to aggravate the riddle of the 
universe and not to dissolve it. To assume that 
the orb has given birth to so many things greater 
than itself is to assume the impossible. 

To believe in a personal God as the fountain of 
life and thought, beauty and joy, is, we confess, to 
rest in a great mystery ; but such faith is far more 
reasonable than that of the fire-worshipper. The 
problem of the world may not be put aside. It is 
the first of the obstinate questionings ; we cannot 
escape it, it insistently demands consideration ; 
and, refusing the explanation of revelation, we can 
only fall back on irrational and incredible theories. 
" Have ye not known ? have ye not heard ? hath 
it not been told you from the beginning ? have ye 
not understood from the foundations of the earth ? 
It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, 
and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; 
that stretch eth out the heavens as a curtain, and 
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. . . . 
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath 
created these, that bringeth out their host by 
number : He calleth them all by name ; by the 
greatness of His might, and for that He is strong 
in power, not one is lacking." Denying this sub- 
lime conception of the first Cause and sovereign 
Upholder of the universal frame, we "cannot 



12 THE FATAL BARTER 

choose an object more worthy of our worship than 
the luminary adored by our ancestors." Surely 
there is more luminary than luminousness ; we 
have not gained anything, but lost much, by con- 
signing the sacred writing to the brazier. The 
enigma of the world returns, the difficulties are 
greater than ever; " many like words have been 
added unto it." 

II. The Question of Liberty. Revelation 
by many is renounced in the name of liberty. 
Our freedom, they hold, is arbitrarily narrowed by 
the sacred lawgivers. And these emancipated 
ones have placed on record the sense of enlarge- 
ment and rapture they experienced when first they 
felt themselves free of the incubus of the righteous 
God and His commandments ; yet, though we 
repudiate the throne, statutes, and government of 
God, we must still recognize the dominion of law, 
unrestricted liberty being simply impossible. On 
entering a free, public park, the first object to 
catch the eye is a table of laws instructing visitors 
as to what is, and is not, permitted within its 
boundaries, and threatening sundry summary 
penalties if they introduce a dog, venture on the 
grass, or pluck a flower. And this &free park ! 
Yet we do not complain. These prohibitions pre- 
serve the park a paradise. Were they not en- 
acted and duly enforced, it would become a bear- 
garden. Thus is it with society at large. If we 
revolt against the Supreme Lawgiver, if we break 
His bands asunder and cast away His cords from 



THE FATAL BARTER 13 

us, still law and order must be enforced, or civili- 
zation lapses into barbarism. We may shatter the 
tables of stone ; but, having done so, they must 
immediately be replaced in some shape, or chaos 
is the penalty. The sacred parchment may be 
cast into the fieriest furnace ; but " Thou shalt 
not" is written in asbestos, and cannot be ob- 
literated. 

It may be argued, however, that if the necessity 
for law survives the destruction of revelation, we 
may create for ourselves a wider and worthier 
freedom. Let us, then, inquire whether this is 
likely. Mark three points as characteristic of the 
law laid down by revelation for the regulation of 
human conduct. 

i. It assures us of our freedom. From the be- 
ginning to the end it distinguishes between us and 
necessitated nature. Everywhere it upholds the 
liberty of the human spirit, regards the power of 
choice as the essence of our greatness, and invests 
us with responsibility for our character and action. 
That we are no part of the mechanical world is 
the fundamental assumption of revelation, therein 
agreeing with the universal consciousness. But, 
having renounced the sacred oracle, the scepticism 
of the day proceeds to maintain that the idea of 
human freedom is the merest illusion. It is con- 
fidently asserted that the world is a vast and 
complicated machine ; it continues its purposeless 
and eternal grind, and we men and women are 
pins and cogs in the iron system, fixed and 



U THE FATAL BARTER 

necessitated like the wheel in the enginery of a 
mill. Have we improved our position, then, this 
time? The exact contrary is the truth. Under 
the pretense of enlarging our liberty, we are de- 
prived of it absolutely. We are no more free 
than the bubble borne on the tide and the cloud 
driven by the wind. We are sold into the most 
tragic bondage of all ; degraded into drudges of 
physiology, galley-slaves of circumstance, serfs of 
the cosmos. We are no longer men, but mario- 
nettes. 

2. The divine law as expressed in revelation 
claims obedience as the law of reason, right, and 
love ; and all may see that in keeping such law is 
liberty indeed. The higher law, as laid down in 
God's Word, contains nothing that does not com- 
mend itself to the understanding, the conscience, 
and the heart. But forswearing revelation, we 
must perforce turn to nature ; and what now is the 
gain? If modern science teaches one thing 
clearly, it is that nature does not furnish high laws 
of conduct. | As an observer of nature writes, after 
witnessing one of her strange sights, " The direst 
cruelty, animated by the tenderest love ! The 
most savage egotism, prompted by an entire un- 
selfishness ! Such are some of the problems which 
nature furnishes, but will not solve." The law of 
God, as enjoined by revelation, is an expression 
of reasonableness, righteousness, and benignity ; 
the law of nature, as interpreted by accredited 
scientists and philosophers, signifies rule without 



THE FATAL BARTER 15 

reason, force without righteousness, and judg- 
ment without mercy. And if we turn from the 
material universe and seek the laws of conduct in 
our own ambiguous nature, we find no royal law 
of liberty. The book of the soul is as blotted and 
obscure as the page of nature. 

3. Law as expressed in revelation is softened by 
divine clemency ; it expresses a gracious element 
elsewhere lacking. Mommsen writes concerning 
Roman law : " It seemed as if the law found a 
pleasure in presenting on all sides its sharpest 
spikes, in drawing the most extreme consequences, 
in forcibly obtruding on the bluntest understand- 
ing the tyrannic nature of right." This is not the 
characteristic of the legalism of revelation. The 
severe claims of the Old Testament are yet mel- 
lowed by the sentiment of consideration, sym- 
pathy, and tenderness. "The Lord is merciful 
and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in 
mercy. He will not always chide : neither will 
He keep His anger forever. For He knoweth 
our frame; He remembereth that we are dust." 
Scores of such passages throw a softening light on 
the stern pages of the divine programme of 
human duty. Here it seems as though the law 
found pleasure in presenting on all sides, when- 
ever possible, the genial, humane, and merciful ; 
in drawing the most indulgent consequences ; in 
demonstrating the reasonableness of right. A 
great love glows through all the austerity of the 
Mosaic dispensation. And the burden of the New 



16 THE FATAL BARTER 

Testament is God's grace to a world of sinners ; it 
is one incomparable proclamation of pity, forgive- 
ness, and salvation. 

On the score of freedom, then, how much ad- 
vantaged are we by the repudiation of the sacred 
canon ? No better ; only infinitely worse. Hav- 
ing before been beaten with whips, we are now 
chastised with scorpions. The freedom of the 
soul, the righteousness of law, the reality of 
grace, are precious doctrines surrendered. We 
dethrone the just and gracious Lawgiver, and, 
having broken His golden sceptre, proceed to 
occupy His place with blind, dark, capricious 
shapes, or shapelessnesses, called Fate, Force, 
Chance, Nemesis, Necessity, Destiny. The wri- 
ting comes back, and many words, many terrible 
and painful words, are added to it. 

III. The Question of Conscience. It is 
vainly supposed that by the rejection of revelation 
we should escape the problem of sin. We are told 
that the Christian revelation, and it alone, stands 
between us and a simple natural gladness ; it, and 
it alone, is responsible for the sense of guilt and 
remorse, for our bitterest tears, our dark and terri- 
ble forebodings. If, once for all, we could turn 
our temples into skating-rinks and consign our 
Bibles to the trunk-maker, we should have done 
with sin, guilt, shame, and fear ; and there would 
be nothing to prevent our return to the sweet sun, 
the gaieties of nature, and the music of the 
world. 



THE FATAL BARTER 17 

Would this be so ? Shall we at the same time 
get rid of the surplice and sackcloth and find life 
all sunshine, music, and flowers ? We can hardly 
believe it. Although the design of the Christian 
revelation is to quicken the sense of sin, yet that 
sense exists apart from this revelation. All na- 
tions in all ages have been the subjects of bitter 
reasonings within themselves ; shame, remorse, 
and despair were their familiar experiences, be- 
cause they failed to fulfill the higher law enjoined 
by their conscience. This is equally true at the 
present hour concerning the nations outside Chris- 
tendom. A few years ago the British Govern- 
ment sent out an expedition to India to observe 
an eclipse of the sun ; and one of the members of 
the astronomical staff gives this graphic account 
of an affecting sight witnessed by them during 
their tour: "The forthcoming eclipse, which 
would be visible at Benares, brought with it, to 
the native mind, an unrivalled chance of salva- 
tion ; for every pious Hindu believed that, could 
he but contrive to enter the Holy River at the mo- 
ment that the shadow struck the water, his sins 
would be washed away from him and heaven be 
sure. Therefore, from every corner of that vast 
country came the pilgrims — hundreds, thousands, 
nay, millions of them ; blocking the roads, cho- 
king the trains, congesting the stations. Dusty 
and footsore, weary and wayworn, dropping out of 
the way, lying down to die by the roadside ; of all 
ranks, ages, and positions, but each with staff in 



18 THE FATAL BARTER 

hand and the light of eager faith in their dark, 
patient eyes." 1 

If anything is universal, it is the sense of sin and 
retribution. It often reveals itself in wild super- 
stitions and grotesque strivings after salvation ; yet 
it is there, deep down in the soul of the peoples, 
and it will be reckoned with. Spurn the Christian 
revelation, burn it with fire, rake it in the ashes ; 
but remember that conscience remains crushed 
with the weight of its mysterious burden, tortured 
with the pangs of its mysterious pain. 

In repudiating revelation we forfeit the only 
book in the world that deals seriously and effec- 
tually with that consciousness of sin which is our 
darkest problem; that discovers the principle of 
sin, and discloses most vividly its subtle working, 
its lurid power and destructiveness. And, far be- 
yond this, we have discarded the only document 
which shows in a rational manner how men may 
escape sin's power and penalty. The Gospel of 
our Lord Jesus Christ is the good news of pardon, 
purification, perfecting. It assures us that the 
vicious principle is no part of our true self ; that, 
despite our sin, we are essentially great, and that 
our complete recovery is possible in Christ. It is 
the good news of free grace, complete liberty, 
sanctifying power, and immortal hope to every 
child of the race. Although the New Testament 
is renounced — sin, devils, judgments, and hell re- 
main potential in the human conscience. We 

1 The Record of an Aeronaut. 



THE FATAL BARTER 19 

have rejected the physician, but left the plague ; 
overthrown the lighthouse, but left the rock ; 
wiped out the rainbow, but left the storm. Whilst 
the race is yet tormented by the consciousness of 
guilt and the apprehension of retribution, we con- 
demn it to the mental agonies, unavailing sacri- 
fices, and hopeless outlook of paganism. What- 
ever changes may mark the future in the science 
of medicine, the physical maladies of mankind 
will undoubtedly persist for ages ; and whatever 
changes the future may witness in theological and 
philosophical thought, the malady of the soul will 
continue clamorously demanding treatment: we 
are not about to outgrow the consciousness of sin, 
it will survive the consciousness of disease. Nay, 
so far from outgrowing this consciousness, is it not 
likely to become more acute with the growth of 
the race ? As Dante expresses it : 

O noble conscience and without a stain, 
How sharp a sting is trivial fault to thee ! 

And if the increase of light and moral refinement 
implies an increase of sensibility in the individual, 
will it not signify the same with the race ? The 
pathetic cry, " O wretched man that I am ! who 
shall deliver me out of the body of this death?" 
will still pierce the heavens ; and by disclaiming 
revelation we render the darkest problem darker 
still. The rejected scroll returns, and many like 
words of perplexity and condemnation are added 
unto it. 



20 THE FATAL BARTER 

IV. The Question of Duty. The austere 
conception of duty given by revelation renders it 
unpopular. It enjoins a lofty righteousness, and 
insists that we ought to be prepared to make any 
and every sacrifice that this righteousness may be 
fulfilled. " Whosoever doth not bear his own 
cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple." 
He must crucify the lower for the higher, the self- 
ish for the social, the present for the future. The 
secret of life, declares the Master, is renunciation ; 
through constant and profound self-denial do we 
attain personal perfection, true happiness, ever- 
lasting life. To many this view of duty is most 
distasteful ; room must be left for self-will, caprice, 
egotism, indulgence. To the Greek the cross 
was " foolishness " ; persuaded that a life of sensa- 
tion and selfishness was the true life, what con- 
cern had he with a faith that required the cruci- 
fixion of the lusts of the flesh and of the mind ? 
Thus is it permanently with the natural man. 
" Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way 
that leadeth unto life, few there be that find it." 
We cannot tolerate the harsh condition, and in- 
dignantly fling the forbidding scroll into the fire. 

But having committed the obnoxious document 
to the flames, how do we stand? How does it 
stand with a people who reject the law of self- 
sacrifice? All history shows that the spirit of 
egotism and indulgence is fatal to the grandeur of 
nations ; and when they are bankrupt, the prophet 
comes back and proclaims the old stern law of 



THE FATAL BARTER 21 

sacrifice, with many words of penalty added to it. 
How does it stand with the individual ? Is he in 
any better plight? In the name of liberty and 
pleasure, the requirements of Christ are repudi- 
ated ; it shall be roses, roses, roses all the way. 
But this course inevitably brings satiety, disgust, 
despair. The Prodigal Son is the standing 
picture for all time of the working and retribution 
of the selfish, self-willed, and sensual life. Readers 
of the biography of Lafcadio Hearn will remem- 
ber how "he grew impatient of the prejudices of 
Anglo-Saxon pudency," rioted in grossness of 
thought and life, and made his home in a pagan 
land. Yet years later, when he began to think of 
his son's future, he wrote, " What shall I do with 
him ? Send him to grim Puritans that he may be 
taught the Way of the Lord? I am beginning to 
think that really much of the ecclesiastical educa- 
tion (bad and cruel as I used to imagine it) is 
founded on the best experience of man under 
civilization ; and I understand lots of things I 
used to think superstitious bosh, and now think 
solid wisdom." * So the prodigal comes to him- 
self in the far country ! Degraded and hungered, 
" he understands lots of things " ; in fact, he ap- 
prehends life in another light, knows that the law 
of self-denial is inevitable, and that years of denial 
and resistance only make the writing the more 
painful. We cannot, by any ingenuity, evade the 
law of self-denial — it is written in the very consti- 

1 Life, vol. i, p. 63. 



22 THE FATAL BARTER 

tution of things ; there is no great character, no 
satisfying power, no lasting civilization with- 
out it. 

It may now be said, If self-sacrifice remains the 
condition of perfection in the individual and in 
society, the law is no longer so mysterious and 
obnoxious as it appears in revelation. Is this so ? 
Having dispensed with revelation, where shall we 
betake ourselves for the study of the principle of 
renunciation ? Shall we go to nature ? Through- 
out nature the law of sacrifice is expressed with 
tragic severity ; it is not less than appalling. 
Shall we go to history ? The law of suffering as a 
condition of progress is truly terrible as it has as- 
serted itself in the development of the race. Shall 
we go to philosophy for an exposition of this 
strange principle which underlies all life and evo- 
lution ? We shudder at the law of self-denial as 
expounded in the pages of Schopenhauer, Hart- 
mann, and Leopardi. Reject Calvary as the cen- 
tral truth of life ; yet the cross is fastened upon 
us, as it was upon Simon, whether we will or not. 
And there is nothing in this world so terrible as 
the cross away from Christ ! That the ideal can 
be attained only through self-crucifixion, that 
blood and death are the price of growth and per- 
fection, appears the darkest of enigmas, the most 
irrational, the most intolerable, the most cruel. 
Calvary does not exaggerate the cross ; it mightily 
relieves it. Well may the Lord Jesus confront us 
with absolute confidence : " Take My yoke upon 



THE FATAL BARTER 23 

you, and learn of Me ; for I am meek and lowly of 
heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls : for 
My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." The 
law of self-sacrifice, so terrible elsewhere, finds its 
mildest, noblest expression in Him. Here it is 
seen illumined by reason, prompted by love, ac- 
companied by strength, directed to the very high- 
est ends in the sanctification and glorification of 
those who suffer it. At last the burden becomes 
" easy," it becomes " light " ; we can even glory in 
it. But, rejecting revelation, the cross returns, 
heavier than before, bloodier than before : a cross 
without reason, without consolation, without 
crown. 

Glance, finally, at — 

V. The Question of Suffering. Revela- 
tion is largely concerned with the evil principle 
active in humanity, and also with the manifold 
sorrows of life. But these maladies and afflic- 
tions are not in any degree occasioned by the 
faith. Not a solitary form of suffering has Chris- 
tianity created ; and, were it disavowed, not a 
single form would disappear. On the contrary, 
all suffering would be immensely exaggerated. 
The oracles of God give us the reason for suffer- 
ing, show the moral profit of it, inspire with 
strength, soothe with sympathy, and well-nigh 
render us insensible to our wounds in the vision of 
everlasting victory. What ameliorations are left 
when revelation is rent away ? Walter Pater 
speaks of " pale pagan consolations." The writer 



24 THE FATAL BARTFR 

of the Epistle to the Hebrews triumphantly de- 
clares that the Church of Christ has " strong con- 
solation." So that, in renouncing our faith, we 
exchange " strong " consolation for that which is 
pale, yea, as pale as death itself. The physical 
anguish abides, whilst the moral fruit is denied ; 
the material and social deprivations continue, but 
the spiritual compensation lapses ; the gravestone 
is in as great demand as ever, only the holy text 
is deleted. In an eclipsed world like this we are 
indeed in a sorry plight without the truth, grace, 
and hope of the Gospel. " I had fainted unless I 
had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in 
the land of the living." The mystery of trouble, 
suffering, and death is yet with us ; and many 
words of aggravation are added to the black- 
bordered scroll. 

It may be objected that we do not believe in 
doctrines because they are pleasant, but because 
they are true ; and therefore the rational cannot 
console themselves with fables. All we need say 
here, in reply to this kind of objection, is that in 
all cases of perplexity we rest in the best solutions 
that we can find ; and the solution of the great 
problems of human life tendered by the Church of 
God has held the field through two thousand 
years, to the satisfaction of millions of the sin- 
cerest and noblest men and women. If we are to 
doubt our great beliefs, let the infidel doubt his 
doubts. At any rate, let him give us a better gos- 
pel than the one of which he would deprive us ; 



THE FATAL BARTER 25 

for to suppose that Christendom will surrender the 
revelation that has made it, on the promise that a 
better creed will by and by be forthcoming, is to 
suppose that it can be swindled by a gigantic 
confidence-trick. 

Vast is the responsibility of unbelief in conspir- 
ing to destroy the confidence of the multitude in 
Him who is the sum and substance of the sacred 
book. Walking on the banks of the river Trent, 
we recently noticed a conspicuous warning to 
passers-by against damaging the life-buoys pro- 
vided in case of accident. We may justly wonder 
as to the motive of persons bent on committing 
such an outrage. Do they object to the shape of 
the thing ? Does the colour offend their artistic 
sense ? Are they sceptical about its floating 
qualities? Is it malevolence? Or is it sheer 
wantonness ? They supply no substitute ; and, 
having rendered unserviceable the apparatus of 
salvation, the drowning are left to perish. It is 
irrational, cruel, wicked ! Is it not thus with those 
who seek to mar the life-buoy of revelation ? 
Millions passing through deep waters have proved 
its preciousness. When the enemy came in like 
a flood, it prevented their sinking in the dark 
depths. When the overflowing river of sorrow 
swept them away, it kept their head above the 
wave. When they made total shipwreck of 
health and fortune, it brought them safe to land. 
And, trusting to its truth and virtue, the dying 
have triumphantly braved death's cold, sullen 



26 THE FATAL BARTER 

stream until they were lost sight of in the glory 
of the yonder shore. If faith has its responsi- 
bilities, has not unbelief its responsibilities ? Is it 
nothing to nullify the Gospel of our salvation, 
and to leave a world to struggle and sink hope- 
lessly in an abyss of mystery and fear ? As to all 
who have trusted in Christ, let them hold fast their 
confidence firm to the end, and they shall not be 
confounded. 



II 

THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, 
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the 
midst of the. street thereof And on this side of the river and on 
that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yield- 
ing its fruit every month : and the leaves of the tree were for the 
healing of the nations. — Rev. xxii. I, 2. 

WHATEVER mystery may rest upon the 
book of the Revelation, we shall not 
greatly err if we regard this river as 
symbolizing the truth and grace which flow forth 
from God in Christ for the life of the race. 

I. The Source of Gospel Truth and 
Blessing. " A river proceeding out of the throne 
of God and of the Lamb." The truth and grace 
flowing to us from Christ are spiritual, supernat- 
ural, superhuman. They do not spring from be- 
neath, but stream from above, directly out of the 
heart of God, out of the depths of eternity. 
Whatever may be said concerning the human ele- 
ment in revelation, we must not try to interpret it 
as an outcome of human reason ; nor must we at- 
tempt to explain Jesus Christ as a result of evolu- 
tion. Until we are prepared to acknowledge that 
Christianity cannot be accounted for by natural 
causes, it is impossible to appreciate the Gospel in 

27 



28 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

the sense in which it is written in the New Testa- 
ment. To meet the extraordinary need of hu- 
manity, it pleased God to reveal Himself in an 
extraordinary manifestation of truth and grace. 
This position must be frankly recognized. Re- 
demption in Christ is not contrary to nature, but 
outside it ; not violating reason, but transcending 
it ; not independent of history, but making a 
vehicle of history, as a stream is distinct from the 
channel along which it flows. 

Yet the imagery of the text may remind us that, 
whilst the Gospel is essentially spiritual and super- 
natural in genesis and character, it is none the less 
positive and definite. "A river" ; not a vapour. 
" A river " ; not indefinite waters, but defined as a 
stream is by its banks. In the beginning " there 
went up a mist from the earth, and watered the 
whole face of the ground." Many to-day in the 
theological world are fond of a mist that rises 
from the ground ; they rebel against the concrete, 
the definite, the historical ; they vapourize every 
great fact and doctrine of the Christian faith, and 
think that only when these have been sublimated 
into the mythical and poetic are they worthy of 
the intellectual. If, however, we " lay hold " of 
eternal life which is in Christ Jesus, we must hold 
by the tangible, the definite, the historical, the ex- 
perimental. The Christian faith does not resem- 
ble the Oriental systems of faith and worship 
which have been developed in pure philosophy 
and poetry; but, letting down His wings, the 



THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 29 

Angel of the Covenant stands on His feet on the 
grounds of the truly human, sensible, and verifia- 
ble. 

The mysticism that drops the fact is not the 
mysticism of the New Testament. It will be gen- 
erally agreed that St. John is the ideal mystic. 
He possessed to perfection the peculiar genius of 
the mystic, never being content until he had 
looked upon a truth in the light of idealism, and 
had chased it right away into the infinite azure. 
He is the eagle of the apostles ; his wings scale 
the heights of sublimest speculation, his eyes gaze 
upon the sun. Yet he never lets go of the fact. 
In the opening of his Gospel we are at once im- 
mersed in clouds of mystic glory ; but not for a 
moment are we permitted to lose sight of ma- 
terial actuality. "And the Word became flesh, 
and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, 
glory as of the only begotten from the Father), 
full of grace and truth." His First Epistle strikes 
the same note : " That which was from the be- 
ginning, that which we have heard, that which 
we have seen with our eyes, that which we be- 
held, and our hands have handled, concerning the 
Word of life." Nothing here is vaporous, intangi- 
ble, elusive. The mighty corona of mystery gir- 
dling the Sun of Righteousness had a special 
fascination for the beloved disciple ; but he never 
forgets the globular mass at the centre. This is 
the true Christian mysticism — the appreciation of 
fact whose implications defy definition. 



30 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

To-day, however, a given school first regards 
the great verities of the Incarnation, the Atone- 
ment, and the Resurrection as fables, and then 
proceeds to treat the fictions as suggestive symbols 
of essential truth. We may spiritualize facts, 
hardly myths. A while ago a traveller succeeded 
in taking the photograph of a mirage. Shadow 
of a shade ! So the new theologian requires that 
we accept the facts of the Gospel as myths, and 
then he invites us to spiritualize the myth. A 
still thinner shadow of a still thinner shade ! The 
Church of Christ does not offer to mankind these 
miserable attenuations. The sins, sufferings, and 
sorrows, the needs, hopes, and fears of the race 
are real, tremendously real, insistent facts of con- 
sciousness ; and they are not to be met by base- 
less abstractions. We need realities to meet 
realities, and we have them. The New Testa- 
ment is not a collection of photographed mirages ; 
it is a record of glorious facts photographed in 
their own light, and appealing to the conscious- 
ness as our sins and sorrows do. We do not 
tantalize with vapours a world perishing of thirst ; 
but the smitten rock of Calvary sends forth a tide 
of living waters of which if a man drink he shall 
never thirst again. 

II. The Grand Characteristics of the 
Evangelical Message. Note : 

i. The fullness of the blessing. "A river." 
Not a pool, cistern, or rivulet, but a free, full, 
flowing stream. The idea is that of sufficiency, 






THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 31 

plenitude. Before Christ came there had been 
brooks and reservoirs — there are such still outside 
His palpable sphere of influence ; but the dis- 
tinctive note of the Christian faith is that of 
adequacy, abundance, completeness. " Fullness " 
is one of the most conspicuous words of the New- 
Testament. Whatever Christ does for us is done 
amply, effectually, overflowingly. Herein lies one 
aspect of the glorious singularity of the Christian 
faith — its fullness and efficacy of blessing. 

Fullness of truth. The knowledge of salvation 
in Christ is so complete that nothing need be 
added to it ; it is so complete that nothing can be 
added to it except to our detriment. The author 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews sets forth this fact 
in the front of his great argument — the contrast 
between the " divers portions " and the all-com- 
prehending truth. In past ages partial illumina- 
tions were vouchsafed ; but the whole essential, 
final truth touching our eternal redemption has 
been revealed in Christ. Science tells us that the 
highly refractive power of the diamond throws 
back the light that falls on it, instead of allowing 
the rays to pass through it, as glass does. It is 
this property that causes the gem to sparkle in 
the dark. In the deepest darkness there are al- 
ways some wandering rays — some stray pencils of 
light to render the darkness visible; and these, 
how few or small soever, the diamond collects to 
a point and flashes back into the gloom. Abra- 
ham, Moses, David, the Hebrew prophets, Mel- 



32 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

chizedek and Job, great teachers in Persia, India, 
Mexico, China, Arabia, Japan, Greece, and other 
regions, were diamond souls, who in the darkness 
that covered the earth caught the wandering rays 
of the light that lighteth every man coming into 
the world, and flashed them back with greater or 
less lustre upon the eyes of those who were feel- 
ing after God and the way to Him. But the most 
magical diamonds, even if their splendour justifies 
the fables of The Arabian Nights, are as nothing 
compared with the golden glory of the morning ; 
and the truths and half-truths, the foregleams of 
pre-Christian ages, are swallowed up in the per- 
fect light of Him who is Truth itself. We need 
not go outside the New Testament for saving 
knowledge. " I strive for you, and for them at 
Laodicea, that their hearts may be comforted, 
they being knit together in love, and unto all 
riches of the full assurance of understanding, that 
they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, 
in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge hidden." 

Fullness of grace. Plenitude of love, strength, 
comfort, peace, and hope is ours in the knowledge 
and fellowship of Jesus Christ. His Gospel is 
"the Gospel of grace." It brings a love that 
leaves no room for suspicion, a strength that 
allows no excuse for weakness, a purity whiter 
than any fuller on earth can whiten, a hope so 
full and assured that it brands doubt as sin. The 
fullness of saving grace. The good tidings of 



THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 33 

Christ breathe infinite pity, they promise ample 
forgiveness, and inspire hope in despair itself. 
The guilty soul is given a chance, every soul a 
chance, the most deeply lost a chance. It is just 
what the sinner wants ; it is immeasurably beyond 
what he could expect. No larger, freer, more 
effectual message of salvation is conceivable. 
Were heaven to give us another Gospel, it could 
not be a better. The fullness of sanctifying grace. 
The river is "bright as crystal " ; and if we will 
only allow it to flow through us freely, it will 
cleanse and hallow every thought, passion, 
principle, and instinct of our nature, making our 
whole being bright as crystal. 

The fullness of satisfying grace, the grace that 
brings its own evidence. Revelation gives us no 
mean interpretation of ourselves. Unlike a scep- 
tical secularism, it honours human nature, magni- 
fies it wonderfully. " What vast horizons I could 
paint now ! " exclaimed the dying Corot ; but rev- 
elation always paints vast horizons concerning our 
nature and destiny. And in Christ Jesus every 
possibility is met and satisfied. Recently we no- 
ticed in a gentleman's grounds a tame sea-gull 
paddling in a dish, and picking whatever morsels 
it might find. It seemed almost profane to clip 
the wings of the bird of sky, sea, and storm, and 
doom it to a pie-dish ! But that gull was simply 
majestic, and its sphere immense, compared with 
the secularist who degrades himself to the sordid 
fate of "What shall we eat? what shall we drink? 



34 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " The Gos- 
pel of Christ honours our whole vast, complex 
being, and satisfies our instinct for God, righteous- 
ness, and immortality. " Whosoever drinketh of 
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; 
but the water that I shall give him shall become 
in him a well of water springing up unto eternal 
life." 

The great thing to be remembered in this day 
is that the whole question of salvation is between 
us and Christ. He alone paid the price of our re- 
demption, He alone is competent to deliver and 
perfect. Whatever was lost is restored in Him, and 
we are complete in Him. This is the view that 
St. Paul so passionately enforced in the primitive 
Church, and it is the vital truth to be insisted upon 
to-day. " This I say, that no one may delude you 
with persuasiveness of speech." A legend of the 
Jews accounts for the existence of jewels. It re- 
lates that in paradise was a temple built of mighty 
blocks of precious stone. Within it were pillared 
halls and cloisters of emerald and pearl, and above 
it domes of sapphire blazed in the sunlight. In 
this temple our first parents worshipped. On the 
day, however, on which they sinned the superb 
shrine was shattered into a million fragments 
which were sown broadcast over the earth : the 
emeralds, sapphires, and rubies we find to-day 
being the relics of the primitive sanctuary. This 
is the wild setting of a sober fact. Through pas- 
sion, ignorance, and disobedience the temple of 






THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 35 

truth has been shattered, and its precious fragments 
are found in all creeds and philosophies, " with 
rubbish mixed and glittering in the dust." But 
on the day that the Lord Jesus Christ stood forth, 
announcing to a distraught world, " I am the Way, 
and the Truth, and the Life," the lost temple was 
recovered, in more than fabled splendour, let down 
out of heaven from God. In the excelling knowl- 
edge of Christ Jesus we find the truth, peace, per- 
fection, and infinite hope which complete the soul. 
Every essential thing is here. 

Thou, O Christ, art all I want, 
More than all in Thee I find ! 

2. The purity of the river recalls the holiness 
of the Gospel. " It gleamed like crystal." Where 
else shall we find such unsullied lustre, such flash- 
ing purity as we see in the revelation whose sub- 
stance is Christ! The Hindu regards with pro- 
foundest reverence his sacred river Ganges, be- 
lieving that it takes its rise in paradise, and that 
its waters are incorruptible. Macaulay, however, 
tells how when a devotee was shown a drop of the 
sacred stream under the microscope, it was seen 
to swarm with pollution. Is not this incident a 
parable of the faiths of these Oriental peoples? 
Their most sacred things are infected with unclean- 
ness. Alongside of fine truths, their Scriptures 
contain pestilent errors. The temples in which 
they worship are foul with ghastly idols. Their 
moral codes permit and enjoin grievous immorali- 



36 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

ties. Their systems of faith and worship must not 
be subjected to the microscope. The Christian 
faith will bear the microscope ! The river gleams 
all the more under the searching glass and the 
concentrated beam. 

Take the Christian doctrine of God. Recall the 
gods of paganism — lustful, capricious, brutal, 
bloody ; and then, if it be lawful to speak of the 
two things in the same breath, think of the Holy 
One of Israel as revealed in the Lord Jesus ! The 
Lord God is a sun whose pure splendour His peo- 
ple often darkened by the intervention of their 
frailties and faults ; yet in the Old Testament His 
moral glory, shining through all the clouds and 
eclipses created by human ignorance and sin, con- 
trasted marvellously with the stained idols of the 
nations surrounding Israel. And the whole 
breadth of the heavens comes between the pantheon 
of paganism and Him who is light and in whom 
there is no darkness at all. Strange, indeed, how 
this conception of a Deity of absolute purity arose 
in the human mind ! Search the great white 
throne with the microscope, and know it spotless. 
It has been affirmed that the Deity of a people is 
always a reflection of themselves ; but the God of 
revelation is no reflection of ourselves. Humboldt 
writes concerning the black rivers of the Orinoco, 
" These black streams reflect the images of the 
southern stars with the most remarkable clear- 
ness." Yet no one supposes that the heavens are 
indebted for their splendour to the dark stream 



THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 37 

that reflects them. Nor can we believe that the 
pure Deity who confronts us in revelation is in 
anywise the creation of an imperfect humanity. 
The thought of a God glorious in holiness could 
come only from Himself — the river flows from the 
throne. 

Our Master has been searched through the 
microscope by unsparing eyes, with the result 
that the critics are more nearly unanimous con- 
cerning His perfection than they are agreed on 
any other subject whatever. As the ages pass, 
His divine greatness and righteousness more and 
more impress the consciousness of the race. A 
pupil of Corot copied one of his pictures so faith- 
fully that an accidental spot of glue upon the mas- 
ter's canvas was reproduced. " Ah ! " responded 
Corot, " look as carefully at Nature, and you will 
find her without stain," May we not truly affirm 
that if we take the greatest and best of men as a 
pattern, and closely imitate them throughout, we 
shall repeat some spot or stain ; but if we look 
carefully at the Lord Jesus and severely follow the 
ideal, we shall find Him without fault ? Ah ! and 
we shall be found faultless also. There is a per- 
fection here beyond that found by the student in 
nature. Our Master is purer than the dew, whiter 
than the snow, lovelier than the rainbow, sweeter 
than the rose. The sinlessness of Jesus is the end- 
less delight of His people, the persistent problem 
of His foes. 

Put the ethics of Christianity under the micro- 



38 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

scope, they will bide the test. The severest ordeal 
has not to this hour discredited the Words of 
Sinai or the Sermon on the Mount. Scientists 
celebrate the skill of the Belgian chemist who 
eliminated from his chemicals every trace of that 
pervasive element, sodium, so thoroughly, that 
even its spectroscopic detection was impossible ; 
but far more wonderful is that code of righteous- 
ness given in revelation, embodied in Jesus Christ, 
in which the sternest critics fail to discern the 
subtlest trace of error or injustice. It approaches 
the amusing, as nearly as the serious nature of 
the subject will admit, to watch the ingenuities by 
which sceptical and utilitarian moralists attempt 
to invalidate the divine system of character and 
duty established by our Lord and Master. Some- 
times they demur to it as excessive ; on other 
occasions they presume to transcend it ; and their 
latest champion, as though in final despair of 
being able to damage its authority, transports us 
into a strange sphere "beyond good and evil." 
Time begins to make clearer to us the bold words 
of our Lord, " Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but My words shall not pass away." 

Subject the celestial world of the Christian faith 
to the most rigid examination, and confess its 
matchless purity and delight. The paradise of 
Mohammed is the harem in excelsis ; the world of 
glory discovered by Christ is holiness itself. The 
state of final felicity on which He fixes our faith 
does not appeal to the imagination, much less to 



THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 39 

our appetites, but simply and powerfully to the 
conscience. Never once do the sacred writers 
seek to dazzle our imagination or to excite our 
passions ; everywhere, and always, are we steeped 
in an atmosphere of intense purity. The founda- 
tions of the city being precious stones, the streets 
gold, the gates pearl, the garments white, the 
light like unto jasper, the river gleaming like 
crystal — all symbolize the truth that the New 
Jerusalem is founded, guarded, and illuminated 
in righteousness ; that the everlasting source of 
its preciousness, delectableness, and beauty is the 
fact that it so perfectly mirrors the holiness of the 
throne of God and the Lamb which is its centre 
and glory. 

Nothing that we know is really so wonderful as 
this river of water of life clear as crystal. Our 
age has heard so much of the defects of revela- 
tion, the doctrines of our faith have been so un- 
sympathetically discussed, that we might easily 
conclude that we had to do with some ancient 
foul drain that it would be well to arch over and 
forget ; whilst, in very truth, the depth of the 
purity of the river, impartially considered, is the 
miracle of miracles. That the sacred tide is some- 
times discoloured by the channels through which 
it flows, that chips and straws are borne on its 
surface, that weeds may mix with it here and 
there, is no matter for surprise ; the standing won- 
der is the great luminous river whose sands are 
gold, whose depths glass the purity of the heavens, 



40 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

and whose virtues give health and life to the 
nations. This is the marvel, this the main feature 
on which sincere men will rivet their attention, 
that such a silver current of awful purity should 
flow through a world like this. The truth and 
grace in Christ Jesus have no terrestrial origin ; 
only a river flowing from the eternal hills could 
be thus pure. 

3. The vitality of the river suggests the living 
power of the Christian faith. " A river of water 
of life," one that clothes with beauty and fruitful- 
ness whatever it touches. The Oriental has a 
keen appreciation of the magical virtue of water. 
He discerns a flower in every dewdrop, a harvest 
in the passing shower, a whole paradise in the 
tiniest rill sparkling from the spring. So the Old 
Testament recognized the mysterious power of the 
divine grace to revive the soul and fill it with de- 
light. "The Lord shall guide thee continually, 
and satisfy thy soul in dry places, and make strong 
thy bones ; and thou shalt be like a watered gar- 
den, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail 
not." But this figure of the prophet touching the 
vitalizing of the soul is immensely enlarged and 
enriched in the New Testament. There comes to 
the believer in Christ not merely the kindling of 
thought, the freshening of feeling, the invigoration 
of principle and purpose, that always accompany 
contact with new truth ; but also the very princi' 
pie of divine life is established in the soul, welling 
up, streaming forth, in abounding peace and love, 



THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 41 

jo)^ and hope. He who came that we might have 
life and have it more abundantly has effected a 
vast change in human experience concerning all 
that is understood by spiritual life — the " mist" of 
refreshment granted the fathers has given place to 
a " river out of Eden that waters the garden." 
" For of His fullness we all received, and grace for 
grace. For the law was given by Moses ; grace 
and truth came by Jesus Christ." And what all 
this means in character and experience is amply 
declared in the Epistles, where grace crowds grace 
in rarest perfection. Travellers tell of landscapes 
where violets grow to be trees ; and some such 
transformation and enhancement, only infinitely 
more rich and strange, has passed over all the 
graces since the eternal fountain of love and life 
was unsealed in Christ Jesus. 

The faith of Christ vivifies all civilization. " And 
on this side of the river, and on that, was the tree 
of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its 
fruit every month." Whatever belongs to the 
completeness of social, civic, and imperial life is 
secured through the action of the Gospel. The 
faith of Jesus energizes the whole range of human 
interests, relationships, and delights. It also ren- 
ders all precious things perennial and permanent. 
As in prolific regions ripe fruit and fresh-blown 
blossoms may be seen upon a single branch of 
apple- or orange-tree, so a civilization instinct with 
the Christian spirit is at once full of matured bless- 
ings and rich in aspiration and promise. The 



42 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 

ideal civilization has not yet been reached because 
the spirit of Christ has not yet been transfused 
through national life. Whenever that shall once 
be, there shall be glory, honour, and peace, every- 
where, always, evermore. 

Christ gives life to the world. " And the leaves 
of the tree were for the healing of the nations." 
Sometimes a river makes a city, as the Abana 
Damascus ; or it enriches a country, as the Nile 
Egypt ; or it vitalizes a continent, as the Amazon 
South America. But the mystic river we celebrate 
gives life to a world. We venture to declare that 
all the manifold race needs is in the faith of Christ, 
and that the highest duty of Christian men is to 
publish and apply that faith. As the river that 
went out of Eden " parted, and became into four 
heads," so the river gushing from the mediatorial 
throne flows east and west, north and south, cleans- 
ing and fertilizing the whole earth. We do not 
need some extraordinary intervention of heaven 
to bring in the new earth in which dwelleth right- 
eousness, and for whose coming we cry day and 
night; the sufficient, sovereign virtue resides in 
the river which makes glad the City of our God. 
Geologists find the presence of tropical species in 
latitudes now subjected to the rigours of a cold 
climate, and arctic forms in regions at present be- 
longing to the temperate zone. In endeavouring 
to explain these anomalies of climate, scientists in 
past days went in search of vast cosmic changes, 
such as an alteration in the position of the terres- 



THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL 43 

trial axis, a diminution in the amount of solar heat, 
or a gradual cooling of the earth's crust ; but mod- 
ern scientists are satisfied to explain these cli- 
matic conditions as the result of a familiar agency- 
close at hand, and of which we have daily expe- 
rience. A genial current of water or air deflected 
towards our coast is, in their opinion, sufficiently 
powerful to create the difference of temperature 
which rescues us from the rigours of Lapland and 
fills our island with summer's pageantry and au- 
tumn's pride. So to give the nations of the earth 
a sweet summer for the long dark winter of their 
discontent, we need not invoke the personal reign 
of the Lord Jesus or some other extraordinary in- 
terposition of heaven. In that stream of Shiloah 
which flows softly through our sanctuaries, schools, 
and homes, rejoicing us with heavenly fruits and 
flowers, we see the divinely appointed and ade- 
quate agency for converting the earth into a gar- 
den of God. All we need do is to share with the 
nations the living current warmed by the Sun of 
Righteousness, and " on this side of the river, and 
on that," shall bloom the tree of life. 



Ill 

SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

And after these things Joseph of Arimathcea, being a disciple 
of Jesus , but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that 
he might take away the body of Jesus : and Pilate gave him 
leave. He came, therefore, and took away His body. And there 
came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to Him by night, 
bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound 
weight. — John xix. 38, 39. 

JOSEPH and Nicodemus occupy a singular 
position in relation to our Lord. Through- 
out the evangelical narrative they flit in the 
background, and nothing more is known of them 
beyond these rare appearances. They cannot be 
ranked with the acknowledged disciples of our 
Lord, and yet they were in some sense His fol- 
lowers. For all time they represent ambiguous, 
unsatisfactory discipleship. 

I. The Reality of this Discipleship must 
be allowed. To condemn these furtive disciples 
sharply and undiscriminatingly, and to dismiss 
them with a feeling akin to contempt, is to miss 
most instructive teaching. Nor should they be 
thus dismissed. The text speaks of Joseph as 
being " a disciple of Jesus," and we can therefore 
scarcely do less. Whatever his timidity, there was 
in him a core of sincerity. He was " a councillor 
of honourable estate," who, as Mark testifies, was 

44 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 45 

"looking for the kingdom of God." When the 
Sanhedrin condemned our Lord, Joseph " did not 
consent to their counsel and deed." And, as we 
learn from Luke, after the crucifixion he " went to 
Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus," burying 
it in a select tomb. The high character of Joseph 
must be admitted, and the genuineness of his ad- 
miration for our Lord. The same concession must 
be made with regard to Nicodemus. He was of 
unquestionably pure character. At the opening 
of our Lord's ministry he appears as a truth- 
seeker, and as one who recognized in the Master 
a teacher sent from God. In the assembly of the 
Pharisees he pleaded that justice might be done 
the outraged Christ. And in the final scene we 
behold him doing reverence to the body of the 
Crucified. We may not superciliously dismiss 
these followers of the Lord, and assume to ex- 
clude them from the circle of His disciples. 

Is there not reason to believe that some to-day 
occupy the position of these undeclared disciples 
of our text? They fail to come into the open, 
they decline to identify themselves with Christ's 
Church ; yet so much about them is good and 
godly that none would dispute their claim to dis- 
cipleship if they would only make it. Nothing is 
amiss on the score of character, they betray spirit- 
ual sympathies and aspirations, furtively they be- 
friend the cause of Christ ; still, they hesitate to 
declare themselves on His side. Often by the 
purest accident their reserve is infringed and their 



46 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

best self disclosed. Recently we saw a flashlight 
photograph of the night-blooming cereus. This 
plant grows freely in South Africa, and attains 
uncommon beauty, its flowers being from six to 
eight inches in height and width. But, as its 
name implies, the plant in question is at its best 
in the night and blossoms in the darkness. In this 
instance, however, the photographer surprised it 
by the flashlight, and with his camera took its 
picture. We believe that God has many night- 
flowering plants in His garden; and often it is 
only by the veriest chance that we get a glimpse 
of them. 

Sometimes the revealing gleam lights upon them 
whilst they are yet alive and in our midst. A 
singular and unexpected combination of circum- 
stances forces them into view, and assures the 
spectators concerning the reality of their Chris- 
tian character. Most of us can recall occasions 
when persons, whom we thought we knew per- 
fectly, startled us by the revelation of unsuspected 
qualities and tempers ; and it is pleasant to re- 
member how certain of our acquaintances have 
delighted us by unlooked-for manifestations of 
Christian feeling and loyalty. For the time at 
least the white flower has glowed in the white 
light. Now and then the revelation follows the 
passing away of the undemonstrative. A diary, 
perhaps, tells the tale of secretive piety ; or it is 
disclosed by some other indubitable sign. In a 
church with which we are familiar a gentleman 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 47 

worshipped who could never be persuaded to 
identify himself with us in any public way. Ab- 
normally retiring, he merged himself in the great 
congregation ; he was not numbered with the sac- 
ramental host, and few would have supposed him 
a subject of special religious experiences. After 
his death his private Bible, full of the marks of a 
constant and sympathetic student, revealed the 
truth : the lessons of the sacred page had been 
learned, its precious truths pondered, its promises 
appropriated, its vast hopes shared. The under- 
scored book was a flashlight making manifest a 
secret flower which we fully believe blooms in the 
paradise of God. 

There are rigid saints who contend for The 
Visible Church and no Invisible Members ; but it is 
impossible to admit their assumption. We may 
sadly allow that there are those in the Church 
who are not of it ; they stand on its roll without 
revealing its truth and purity : yet, on the other 
side, many beyond our pale really belong to us ; 
they are one with us in faith and holiness. The 
Master has sheep which are not of the visible fold ; 
them also will He bring, and there shall be one 
flock and one Shepherd. God knows silent and 
hidden disciples who are yet real ones. As superb 
flowers are concealed in dark forests, as the violet 
is hidden in the prairie grass, as the rose wastes 
its sweetness on the desert air ; so genuinely de- 
vout men and women are lost to us as, for 
various reasons, they permit themselves to be con- 



48 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

founded with the weeds and briars of the wilder- 
ness. 

Would it not be better generally if the Church 
of God more readily recognized the best side of 
doubtful persons ? We are apt to be exacting, to 
insist on sharp lines and definitions, to reject with 
disdain whatever appears irresolute or half-and- 
half. It was not so with our Master. Nothing is 
more remarkable about the Perfect One than the 
way in which He accepted weak faith, mixed mo- 
tives, hesitating loyalty, a cobweb attachment to 
Himself, for all that they were worth. He had no 
sympathy with that fierceness of orthodoxy and 
virtue which scornfully spurns vacillation and in- 
adequacy. Wherever a gleam of promise met His 
eye it aroused His pity and expectation — in a 
grain of gold-dust lying on the surface He seemed 
ever to apprehend the gold-field of rich possibili- 
ties lying below. A " bruised reed shall He not 
break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till 
He send forth judgment unto victory." His 
tenderness towards the faintest upward-seeking 
desire is the secret of His drawing and saving 
power through the generations. Thus He kindles 
sparks into seraphs, and transforms reeds shaken 
by the wind into pillars of the heavenly palace 
which go out no more. Surely it would be well 
were His Church quicker to discern and welcome 
all who follow at a distance, yet in whom is some 
good thing towards the Lord God of Israel and 
Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. 



SUPPBESSED DISCIPLESHIP 49 

II. The Unsatisfactoriness of Suppressed 
DISCIPLESHIP. Whatever may be said in favour 
of the sequestered disciple partakes at last of the 
nature of apology. It is impossible that it should 
be eulogy. The most skillful advocate is felt to be 
dealing with the excuse that is so nigh to accusa- 
tion. The evangelists content themselves with 
stating the bare fact concerning the dubious disci- 
ples ; no estimate of them is attempted, no justi- 
fication or condemnation is pronounced upon 
these unconfessed attachments ; we are left with 
the naked record, however it may be interpreted. 
Yet, according to Dumas, " silence is an opinion " ; 
and in this place silence cannot be construed into 
sanction. Nicodemus " came to Jesus by night " ; 
and as he came in the darkness, so with his equiv- 
ocal brother he departs in it. The ambiguous 
pair are set forth as admonitory enigmas, not as 
examples. Let the judgment of charity be what 
it may, we are perfectly sure that hidden disciple- 
ship is not the ideal Christian discipleship. We 
may on occasion leave it hopefully with God, but 
we cannot believe it is designed for imitation. 
Let us indicate several points of its defectiveness. 

I. It denies the instinct of the Christian heart. 
The first impulse of a true heart is a ready recog- 
nition of any boon that has been received and a 
loving acknowledgment of the giver. The first 
impulse of the heart that has been drawn by 
Christ and blessed by Him is to avow Him. 
Having seen His beauty, proved His merit, tasted 



50 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

His sweetness and peace, the pure, spontaneous 
response of the soul is acknowledgment and wor- 
ship. The two opaque brethren did violence to 
the finest instinct of their nature, and allowed rich 
opportunities to pass without any expression of 
their love and loyalty, or, at most, with only faint 
demonstrations of faith and affection. They stifled 
noble feeling, and reserved themselves like disci- 
ples of the necropolis. We are justly dissatisfied 
with those who neglect their friends whilst living, 
and then demonstrate their affection in the church- 
yard with a profusion of flowers and eulogies. 
Costly tombs, flattering epitaphs, and gorgeous 
wreaths have their place and signification ; but no 
homage to the dead can atone for the lack of love 
and loyalty to the living. We must breathe our 
love into the listening ear, and not tell it into the 
dull, cold ear of death ; our friends long to taste 
the sweetness of affection whilst yet by our side, 
we must not keep all the spices for their burial. 
Flowers are more delightful scattered on the path- 
way of the living than garnishing the graves of 
the dead. 

It is a grievous mistake to smother the sug- 
gestions of the heart, to silence the words of love 
which spring to the lips, to deny ourselves and 
our kindred the expression of admiration, sym- 
pathy, and affection. They who fail to tell their 
love to Christ, and who withhold from Him the 
tokens of allegiance and devotion, exhibit this 
fault in its saddest and guiltiest form; they do 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 51 

their worst towards quenching the sublimest pas- 
sion which can glow in the human heart, and on 
whose pure flame depends the mightiest con- 
sequences. Great and inevitable, indeed, is the 
revenge of the wronged instinct. Joseph con- 
secrated for Jesus a special tomb ; yet Joseph will 
never rank with John, who continued with the 
Master in His temptations, who leaned upon His 
breast, shared His sorrows, and stood by His 
cross. Nicodemus, as though conscious that he 
had serious arrears to make up, brought a hun- 
dred pounds' weight of spices to embalm the 
sacred body ; yet will he never rank with Mary, 
who before the whole company broke the box of 
spikenard on the head and feet of her living, lov- 
ing Lord. The true Christian heart, here and 
now, aches to voice its love and joy; and to 
choke its utterance, to deny its testimony and 
service, is to quench the Spirit, or at the best to 
leave a few fading sparks of what ought to be a 
quenchless fire. 

2. Reserve is contrary to the genius of the 
Christian faith. Testimony is of the essence of 
the Christian faith. Before Pilate our Lord 
certified concerning Himself, " To this end have 
I been born, and to this end have I come into the 
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." 
His whole mission is here made manifest. He did 
not appear among us as a solitary thinker, a de- 
vout recluse, intent on personal and selfish enjoy- 
ment of sublime thoughts and emotions ; He came 



52 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

as a messenger, a herald, a witness, to declare and 
attest eternal truths, which testimony He finally 
sealed with His blood. Our Lord showed Him- 
self openly ; His sermons were not unspoken, but 
from a mountain pulpit their sound went forth 
into all the world ; and if His ministry knew hours 
of silence, they were like the silences of heaven, 
only to make His vast music vaster. His life 
throughout was a revelation of the unseen and 
eternal ; His ministry a proclamation of the divine 
truth and mercy ; and His passion, crucifixion, 
and resurrection were not things done in a corner. 
Thus, in turn, are His disciples to be witnesses 
also ; they are to set their endorsement and seal 
to the Gospel of our salvation. To the vast 
majority of those whom He blesses the Master 
says, " Go home to thy friends, and tell them 
what great things the Lord hath done for thee, 
and how He hath had compassion on thee." The 
few are chosen vessels to bear His name before 
the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. The 
Christian faith knows no freemasonry; it is a truth 
and an experience, to be testified to by all who 
believe. The Oriental satirically notes that " the 
light of the firefly is sufficient for itself only " : be 
sure that the light of Christ's disciples is not a 
twinkle after this order — a sickly, solitary, selfish 
lustre. " Ye are the light of the world." That 
the Master may be glorified, and His cause duly 
served, the disciple must be prepared coura- 
geously and confidently to give a reason for the 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 53 

hope that is in him to every man. The hidden 
disciple fails to fulfill that social duty which is so 
large a part of Christian duty. 

The value of personal testimony is immense. 
To defend the Gospel in controversy is congenial 
to most Christians ; it calls our combative instincts 
into play, and to debate Christian doctrine in the 
abstract is an intellectual exercise that implies 
nothing difficult nor distasteful ; but to bear 
personal testimony, to declare what we have felt 
and seen, to set to our seal that God is true, is 
often a task calling for courage and sacrifice. 
Yet such witness is of infinitely more value than 
all our scholarship and cleverness of argument. 
And this applies to the testimony of the humblest 
believer. Michael Faraday, that consummate 
scientist, was wont to pay special attention to the 
observations of comparatively untrained but 
practical workmen. They are accustomed to a 
minute observation of what passes before them, 
and their witness to facts and experience Faraday 
considered of true and high importance to the 
philosopher. Is not the experience of the hum- 
blest individual in the things of the Spirit of true 
and high importance? It certainly is, and is 
acknowledged as such by every dispassionate 
man. Christ is supported by a host of eloquent 
and logical witnesses, but His most convin- 
cing witness is the man who was born blind. 
" Whether He be a sinner, I know not : one thing 
I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." 



54 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

3. This suppression impairs the development of 
the Christian character. The unhindered mani- 
festation of the spiritual life is the condition of its 
normal growth. Here many demur, " Seeing the 
root of the matter is found in me, why trouble 
further ? Surely the main thing is the reality of 
the Christian life, and not its profession ! " Thus 
believing, men are tempted to think that the free 
expression of their conviction and sympathy is a 
question of comparative indifference. Such a con- 
clusion is a serious misconception. It is of vital 
consequence that the root of the matter is found in 
us — nothing can be done without that ; but, after 
all, this is only half the problem. Luther Burbank, 
the Calif ornian horticulturist, writes, " The fact is 
too often lost sight of, or not known at all, that the 
tops of the trees absolutely govern the roots " ; 1 
and he proceeds to show that the leaves are of 
prime importance because in them the food of the 
tree, in condensed air and sunshine, is made ac- 
cessible to the tree as a whole. If a tree be rich 
in foliage, it will be powerful in all its parts, be- 
cause it has the capacity to take so much nourish- 
ment from the air and light. It is thus with Chris- 
tian character ; every point of its self-revelation 
becomes in turn a source of health and energy. 
The free manifestation of the spiritual life is essen- 
tial to its vigour and fullness ; far-away branches 
clothing themselves with foliage, bursting into 
blossom, bending with clusters, absolutely govern 

1 New Creations in Plant Life. 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 55 

the roots, and determine the depth and strength 
of the whole character. 

If the exfoliation of the tree is hindered, its en- 
tire aspect is injured ; and in spirit and life we suf- 
fer inevitably and seriously whenever we venture 
to check the motions and outgoings of the divine 
life. Unspoken love waxes cold ; faith fails when 
denied the consummation of action ; dumb expe- 
rience is not sure of itself for long ; joy forbidden 
to sing dies in its cage ; loyalty concealing the 
flag is on the verge of desertion. We cannot deny 
free course to our great convictions and prefer- 
ences without suffering capital loss, as a flower 
might be poisoned by the suppression of its colour 
or the retention of its fragrance. He who does 
not frankly and freely honour the Master in word 
and deed starves the soul and kills character in its 
very roots. 

We cannot conceal from ourselves the serious 
consequences which must follow the shutting down 
of our religious life from the atmosphere of pub- 
licity. Our soul is full of spiritual ideas, instincts, 
affinities, and possibilities ; but to develop, main- 
tain, and mature these, the unchecked action of 
society upon us is as necessary as the unhindered 
stimuli of light, air, and rain to which plants 
respond. We can no more shut up our spiritual 
life to silence, darkness, insulation, and expect it 
to grow and ripen, than we can hope to see a bulb 
in a closet break into sweet flower and ruddy fruit. 
Our religion is, indeed, a thing between God and 



56 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

our own soul ; but it is also a thing between us 
and society, and to attempt to isolate and secrete 
it is to deprive it of a thousand influences and ex- 
citements essential to its perfection. 

III. The Frank, Outspoken Acknowledg- 
ment of the Master is the obvious duty of 
every disciple, and to this we would exhort you. 
What reason can we give for this repression and 
restraint? Is any reason sufficient for such a 
habit ? 

Does constitutional sensitiveness constrain to 
silence and secrecy ? Some persons are constitu- 
tionally reserved, and are ever in the background, 
whatever may be the sphere in which they are 
called to live and act. Not that all suffer from 
this cause ; most are known for what they are 
worth, and occasionally, perhaps, some for more ; 
yet others are incurably supersensitive, and their 
temperament qualifies their religious life. As 
Shelley sings : 

The Sensitive Plant has no bright flower ; 
Radiance and odour are not its dower. 

Not infrequently rare characters amongst men as 
little challenge attention. If, then, our attachment 
to Christ involves the sacrifice of sensibility, let us 
for His sake make it. It is a sacrifice He under- 
stands and appreciates. " And from thence He 
arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. 
And He entered into a house, and would have no 
man know it : but He could not be hid." Here 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 57 

we behold the working of the sensitiveness of a 
great soul, the longing for privacy, the sighing 
for aloofness from the eyes and tongues of the 
public. " But straightway a woman whose little 
daughter " was afflicted urged the Saviour back 
into the unwelcome glare. He makes the sacrifice 
of sensibility for the glory of God and the blessing 
of human kind. Let all who are thus perplexed 
imitate the Master's example ; compelled by the 
love of God and man, dare the limelight, and you 
shall be greatly strengthened to bear and forget it. 
Does the fear of man render us mute and in- 
visible ? " Being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly 
for fear of the Jews." And to-day many are in- 
timidated by fear of the Gentiles. In nature a 
law obtains that is known as the law of " protective 
resemblance." Insects, birds, and animals become 
in colour assimilated to their environment, and 
acquire characters which do not properly belong 
to them, so that they may escape the attentions 
of their enemies. Joseph and Nicodemus had 
assimilated themselves to their environment, as- 
sumed characters which were not truly theirs, 
affected to believe and act as their compeers did, 
that they might find immunity from criticism and 
hostility. So thousands act to-day. Timid be- 
lievers veil and distort themselves, they simulate 
opinions and habits with which they have little 
sympathy, they permit their neighbours to think 
otherwise of them than they truly are, they wear 
characters which do not express their truest and 



58 SUPPKESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

noblest self ; as a matter of protective policy, they 
disguise their convictions and sympathies. Pa- 
thetic hypocrisy, to counterfeit the features of 
ignoble life, to mask by base manoeuvre the truth 
and beauty of the soul ! 

Let me commend a worthier policy. As nature 
protects some plants and animals by mimicry, it 
secures others by lavishing upon them splendid 
and conspicuous colour. Predatory creatures are 
warned off by the striking or gorgeous hues of 
flower, bird, or butterfly ; the vivid markings and 
coloration tell the beasts of prey that the lovely 
things will not be found to their taste. This is 
the secret of absolute safety for the spiritual life. 
No immunity equals that of strong, pure, beau- 
tiful, declared Christian character. Let the colours 
of heaven shine forth, the characters of grace freely 
express themselves, the great beliefs of the soul 
speak out without fear, and none shall make you 
afraid. Sincerity is the synonym for safety. " No 
man is of any use until he has dared everything," 
says Louis Stevenson ; and he who has dared 
everything for a sublime faith is henceforth afraid 
of nothing. " For God gave us not a spirit of 
fearfulness, but of power and love and discipline." 

Do considerations of worldly interest prompt 
our seclusion ? " Nevertheless, even of the rulers 
many believed on Him ; but because of the Phari- 
sees they did not confess it, lest they should be 
put out of the synagogue : for they loved the 
glory of men more than the glory of God." Cal- 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 59 

culations of interest and honour pervert the soul, 
and frustrate purposes of the greatest pith and 
moment. It is not unfair to suppose that Joseph 
and Nicodemus felt the force of these sinister 
considerations. Do similarly unworthy thoughts 
check the current of our soul ? Our discipleship 
is ambiguous, indeed, whilst we cast one down- 
ward glance at the dust and baubles and feathers 
of time and sense. Moses counted the reproach 
of the Christ beyond all the treasures of Egypt, 
and never again once sighed for them. Paul 
counted all things to be loss for Christ, and never 
speaks of the great renunciation with any regret ; 
the whole glittering heap of gains he counted 
refuse. This is the ideal discipleship. The life 
in Christ is so overwhelmingly rich and blessed, 
the treasures of grace and the hope of glory are 
so infinite, that all this world can give is not 
worthy of a thought if it come into competition 
with the great experiences of the saintly soul. 
Let no trimming with terrestrial interests and am- 
bitions beguile us into doing dishonour to our 
Master and injustice to ourselves. 

Does intellectual vanity prevail to render our 
Christian life secret and cloistered ? When Nico- 
demus pleaded with the Jewish authorities that 
our Lord should be heard before He was con- 
demned, the Pharisees retorted, "Art thou also 
of Galilee ? " The Galilean was the plebian, the 
rustic, the illiterate. The magistrates appealed to 
Nicodemus as a man of position and culture, and 



60 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

apparently he shrank from the odium of being 
accounted a Galilean. This test was too severe. 
The ruler of the Jews could have borne any oppo- 
sition better than that his intellectual rank should 
be reflected upon ; the dread of this reduced him 
to silence. Many secretly persuaded disciples to- 
day fail when subjected to this ordeal. The Chris- 
tian name in certain quarters is a synonym for 
narrowness, superstition, fanaticism, hypocrisy ; 
whilst, on the other hand, the enemies of the faith 
are the illuminated, the rational, the liberal, the 
emancipated : and these, by virtue of their as- 
sumed superiority, regard with superciliousness 
any who humbly believe in Christ as He is, and 
in revelation in the sense in which it was written. 
Many mistaken souls cannot tolerate this reflec- 
tion on their social and intellectual pride, "Art 
thou also of Galilee?" Which sneer is equiva- 
lent to saying, "The simple faith of the Gospel 
may be good enough for the man in the street, 
but we expect something different and better from 
readers and scholars, from men who are acquainted 
with the Higher Criticism and the New Theology ; 
it is a degradation for such to identify themselves 
with the company of ordinary believers." In an- 
swer to all this, let us remind ourselves that we 
have nothing to blush for in the Lord Jesus, in 
His Gospel, or in His cause. Strange, indeed, 
that we should be ashamed of avowing Him as 
" our wisdom, righteousness, and redemption " ! 
St. Paul writes of a strange thing when he tells of 



SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 61 

those " who glory in their shame " ; but is it less 
monstrous that any should be ashamed of their 
glory ? "Be not ashamed, therefore, of the testi- 
mony of our Lord : but suffer hardship with the 
Gospel according to the power of God." 

The temptation is great to-day to follow the 
device of Joseph and Nicodemus. To make our 
faith a matter of subjective consciousness, and to 
fight shy of anything that savours of out-and-out 
discipleship, is thought by many to be a sign of 
rare refinement and humility. This is a subtle 
error, all the greater for its subtlety. We do not 
acknowledge Christ for our own glory, but for 
His. "I pray not for the world, but for those 
whom Thou hast given Me " ; "I am glorified 
in them." Let Him be glorified in us, both by 
our lips and lives. Not that we are to make 
any feigned, coerced demonstrations of Christian 
faith and feeling, to act in excess of our sin- 
cerity ; but to give free course to our highest 
convictions and emotions, and out of the abun- 
dance of our heart to permit the mouth to testify. 
Thus confess Him before society ; confess Him as 
your peace, strength, hope, and glory. Let men 
take knowledge of you from the fact that you are 
found where the disciples resort together, that you 
are warm in Christ's cause, that you are habitually 
at His table, that your joy is in His fellowship. 
Leave Joseph and Nicodemus to the compassion 
of their slighted Master ; take your stand with 
apostles, martyrs, and confessors. Christ's cause 



62 SUPPRESSED DISCIPLESHIP 

never needed bold outspoken witnesses more than 
now. Let us heed the warning of Ruskin, that 
"our shamefacedness be not such as may at last 
put us among those of whom the Son of Man 
shall be ashamed.' ' 



IV 
THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee : the remainder 
of wrath shalt Thou restrain. — Ps. lxxvi. 10. 

AS the Assyrian army compassed Jerusalem, 
threatening it with swift and overwhelm- 
ing destruction, so the alien armies of 
evil workers appear formidable to the Church of 
Christ in our own day. No worker for God and 
humanity but must often stand dismayed before 
the pride and power of evil. Zion, with her slight 
external resources, seemed not less than con- 
temptible matched against the world-power of 
Sennacherib ; and the Zion of this generation ap- 
pears utterly inadequate to cope with the arrogant 
wickedness of beleaguering hosts. The principle 
of lawlessness and destructiveness working in the 
world is appalling and ominous beyond exaggera- 
tion. Its manifoldness surprises us. It envelops, 
attacks, and torments us on every side. Practically 
the evils which afflict the world appear infinite and 
overwhelming. Its pervasiveness creates in us 
the sense of helplessness and hopelessness. It 
penetrates everywhere ; it defiles everything. 
" And he opened the pit of the abyss, and there 
went up a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a 

63 



64 THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

great furnace, and the sun and the air were dark- 
ened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And out 
of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth." 
And these locusts swarm on the roses of our 
pleasure, devour the golden fruits of our industry, 
strip the vine and fig-tree of our domestic felicity, 
scorch the lovely acanthus leaf of art, defile the 
pomegranates and palms of our sacred places, 
blight and blacken the whole human landscape. 
Evil, too, works with such energy and fatal facility 
of destructiveness. It requires centuries to fashion 
an oak, whilst a lightning-flash blasts it in a mo- 
ment ; and in this phenomenon we may see, as in 
a mirror, the slow growth of the good and pure, 
the dread effectiveness of the wrath of men and 
demons. Yes ; we often stand paralyzed in the 
presence of the many mighty, malign elements 
working in society. Immeasurable, unfathomable, 
unconquerable as these forces are, our opposition 
to them seems almost farcical. Scientists identify 
the evil principle with the cosmic force. Philoso- 
phers recognize in it the authority of necessity. 
Reformers become sceptical as they struggle 
against its sea-power. And even the believer in 
God is no stranger to the terrible chill of des- 
pondency and despair. 

Scherer criticizes Milton's Satan as being con- 
tradictory and absurd. " How are we to compre- 
hend an angel who enters on a conflict with God ; 
that is to say, with a being whom he knows to be 
omnipotent ? The idea of Satan is a contradictory 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 65 

idea ; for it is contradictory to know God and yet 
attempt rivalry with Him." l Yet, judged from 
the a priori standpoint, Milton's creation is not im- 
probable, nor his reasoning so transparently ab- 
surd. The position implied much more than a 
question of power. Satan's revolt ceases to look 
so desperate when we remember all the obligations 
and limitations of righteousness in the conflict, as 
contrasted with the absolute license of a vicious 
and an indomitable will. Wickedness is restrained 
by no law of truth, honour, right, or mercy. It 
possesses all the resources of sophistry, exercises 
all the arts of flattery, whilst all the glamour and 
hypnotism of sensationalism are at its beck. It 
plays off delirious delights against sobriety, 
jewelled pride against plain honesty, glittering 
success against chaste duty. It proffers all the 
prizes of life immediately and for an old song. It 
works in the dark. Nothing is sacred that stands 
in the way of its infectious nature, imperious will, 
and fierce propaganda. Surely the mighty experi- 
ment of the Satanic revolt was not without its 
fascination, possibility, and promise ! The history 
of centuries demonstrates the depth and power of 
the mystery of iniquity ; and the pessimism of the 
hour, despairing of final victory, confesses the 
strength and stratagem of the vast conspiracy 
against man and God : nay, pessimism holds that 
the demoniacal treason has been crowned with 
absolute success. 

1 Essays on English Literature. 



66 THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

Let us, then, note for our consolation and en- 
couragement the two precious truths expressed by 
the text — the divine restraint of evil, and the divine 
compulsion of evil to issues of good and blessing. 
For, whatever the variations in the interpretation 
of the original by the great scholars, this is sub- 
stantially the significance of the passage before us. 

I. The Divine Restraint of Evil. "The 
remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain." The 
mighty army of Sennacherib, splendidly equipped, 
full of fury and confidence, suddenly and mysteri- 
ously melted away under the power of Jehovah, 
leaving Jerusalem intact and joyful ; and the per- 
manent significance of this event is, that no 
weapon formed against the kingdom of God shall 
finally prosper, that every conspiracy in a critical 
hour shall be brought to nought. 

In nature we see abounding examples of the 
fact that limits are fixed to the destructive forces, 
limits they may not transgress. Geology shows 
how the terrible dragons of the primitive age were 
held in check, and finally eliminated. It might 
have been thought that these monsters, all teeth 
and claw, massive and heavily armoured, would 
have taken possession of the earth and retained 
possession. Yet they did not. Palaeontology 
demonstrates that the best-armed species are those 
which have almost always disappeared. The 
stronger went to the wall. Sovereign laws and 
forces hedged in the formidable beasts, and 
secured the ascendency and permanence of the 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 67 

delicate but nobler types. The naturalist of to-day 
makes it clear that these benign laws and forces 
are still operative. Birds of blood infest the 
heavens, yet they fail to extirpate the sweet 
singers of the woods. In New Guinea is a ven- 
omous bird known as " the bird of death," whose 
bite causes excruciating suffering, blindness, lock- 
jaw, and death. How is it that this strong, fierce 
bird of evil has not multiplied, and taken posses- 
sion of the forest ? How is it that birds of para- 
dise and a thousand more lovely avian forms 
manage to thrive by its side ? or, to come nearer 
home, how is it that the swift, savage hawk does 
not exterminate the singers of our summers? The 
proverb confidently avouches that, " If the cat had 
wings, there would be no larks " ; yet the hawk is 
a winged cat, and nevertheless the sky abides full 
of music. 

The naturalist is familiar with a host of noxious 
plants which threaten the vegetable world, and 
put life in peril. The " devil-plant " of Mississippi 
destroys every bee and beast that touches it. 
The " death-plant " of Java is peculiarly fatal to all 
forms of insect life that come into contact with it. 
The " vampire- vine " of Nicaragua, otherwise 
called " the devil's snare," seems literally to drain 
the blood of every living thing that encounters it, 
and is hateful and horrible beyond description. 
In Natal is a loathsome murderous growth known 
as the " corpse- plant," which devours every living 
thing that lights upon it. And in our own 



68 THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

country are many species of plants fatal to 
animals and man. How is it that these pestilent 
growths, with all their vigour, fecundity, and ag- 
gressiveness, do not prevail? One of the old 
kings had his garden planted wholly of poison- 
flowers ; how is it that the earth has not become 
such a garden ? It has not ; these foul and fear- 
some plants, despite all their advantages, con- 
tinue local, and the landscape misses little of its 
glory. The fact is, there is a benign law, a deli- 
cately poised balance, a sovereign virtue, an anti- 
septic quality, in the very constitution of things, 
which keeps the destructive elements within 
bounds, and preserves the world a theatre of life, 
sweetness, health, and beauty. And as the snake 
is in the grass, the hawk in the sky, the poison- 
plant in the woods, so the octopus, alligator, and 
shark infest the waters; yet the protective law 
operates there also, sheltering whatsoever passeth 
through the depths of the seas. 

The physiologist bears testimony to the same 
conservative law. It would seem reasonable to 
fear that diseases of the blood and brain would be 
transmitted, that they would accumulate from one 
generation to another, until the earth became a 
vast lazaretto ; but, however imminent this disas- 
ter may seem, it does not occur. The student of 
heredity assures us " that there is a limit to the 
transmission of abnormal characteristics." Nature 
purifies the race of its physical defects, or, if the 
type be too vicious, exterminates it ; so that the 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 69 

degeneration of society cannot proceed beyond a 
given point. History insists on the same cheer- 
ing fact. Pharaohs, Sennacheribs, Neroes, Attilas, 
Mohammeds, Tamerlanes, Alvas, Napoleons con- 
tinually arise, putting the nations in fear, tramp- 
ling them under foot, threatening civilization itself ; 
yet history shows that there is always a rock on 
which their Armadas suffer shipwreck, some Mos- 
cow in which their armies perish. 

Evil is full of boasting ; it is insolent, mocking, 
rampant, apparently irresistible ; it threatens to 
occupy the whole sphere — annihilating all that is 
good, soiling whatever is beautiful, quenching in 
darkness whatever is joyous ; yet somehow it 
breaks off unaccountably where and when we did 
not expect it to break off, not having wrought 
nearly the mischief that seemed inevitable. " Fear 
ye not Me? saith the Lord : will ye not tremble at 
My presence which have placed the sand for the 
bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it can- 
not pass it ; and, though the waves thereof toss 
themselves, yet can they not prevail ; though they 
roar, yet can they not pass over it?" 

If in nature these gracious limits are imposed on 
the genius of destruction, let us be assured that 
stern circumscriptions restrain moral evil and ren- 
der impossible its triumph. All about us in con- 
temporaneous society are horrible things — infec- 
tious literature, vile institutions, degrading fash- 
ions, corrupting pleasures, iniquities framed by 
law, organizations, methods, habits, which eat as 



70 THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

doth a cancer. Selfish men, loose women, prey 
on their fellows at every corner. We need only 
to take up the morning paper and run our eye 
down its columns to become conscious of the work- 
ing in society in every direction of the forces which 
poison and destroy. It often seems, to one who 
thoughtfully surveys the factors and workings of 
society, not less than a miracle that civilization 
continues to hold together, swarming as it does 
with malignant parasites. Yet the foes of the race 
do not prevail. Just as a secret law conditions the 
rattlesnake, the vampire, the devil-fish, and the 
upas-tree ; so God's eye is upon the gin-saloon, 
the gutter-press, the gambling-den, the race-course, 
the camera obscura of lust, the prize-ring, the cab- 
inet of the bloody men who delight in war, and all 
the rest of the brutal and devilish centres of the 
agencies and influences which afflict humanity. 
The proud, raging waves of willfulness and pas- 
sion, foaming out their own shame, are broken on 
mystic sands fixed by heaven, and beyond which 
the powers of darkness may not go. So ethereal 
and palpable are these sands that it seems only 
poetry to speak of them ; but their reality and ef- 
ficacy are demonstrated in the persistence and 
progress of the race — though the waves toss them- 
selves, yet can they not prevail ; though they roar, 
yet can they not pass over. " Who shut up the 
sea with doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, 
but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be 
stayed?" He who thus commands the Atlantic 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 71 

and Pacific rebukes the troubled depths of evil as 
they fiercely rage, casting up mire and dirt. 

The strangling creeper is hideous, yet the mag- 
nificence of the forest is unimpaired ; the leopard 
and wolf are swift and fierce, but innocent life feeds 
among the lilies and sings among the branches ; 
clouds of blight settle on the fields, still the golden 
corn feeds the world, — so God checkmates and 
controls the craft and rage of wickedness, lest the 
spirit of man should fail before Him, and the souls 
that He has made. He limits one bad thing by 
another, causes a lesser evil to control a greater, 
and imprisons the whole pandemonium of revolt 
within the golden ring of His absolute sovereignty. 

II. The Divine Compulsion of Evil. "Surely 
the wrath of man shall praise Thee." Not merely 
restrained, but coerced to most desirable issues. 
Not only is Zion saved from evil, she is served by 
it. The peoples of the earth, the estranged heathen 
peoples, through their defeats and humiliations, 
are to attain to true insight and reverence. The 
most furious and the most enraged are to come to 
the thankful acknowledgment of God. Such is 
the significance of the closing strophe of this 
psalm. The rage of kings and peoples is over- 
ruled to the glory of the Church of God and to the 
ultimate salvation of the revolters. 

Let us, however, be clear as to what is exactly 
meant by evil working good. We must remember 
that evil is evil, not good in the making, not un- 
developed good. Essential evil is the deliberate 



72 THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

contradiction of the divine will, the positive viola- 
tion of the divine law, programme, design, the 
clash of God's will and the creature's. And, sec- 
ondly, that good is never brought out of evil — 
that is impossible. When it is affirmed that evil 
works for good, we mean that God so antagonizes 
wicked men, vile institutions, and malign move- 
ments, that in the final result they develop the 
good they threaten to destroy. The selfishness, 
pride, and license of the world are made to work 
its purification. 

History continually shows bad men serving 
high ends. This is the specific teaching of 
Pharaoh's record. " For the Scripture saith unto 
Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee 
up, that I might show in thee My power, and 
that My name might be published abroad in 
all the earth." The interpretation of which is, 
not that God made Pharaoh what he was, but, 
seeing what he was, what he had made himself, 
and how he had become a fanatical oppressor 
of Israel, God made use of him for the further- 
ance of a world-embracing scheme of redemp- 
tion. Pharaoh became an unwilling and un- 
conscious minister of God and humanity. Ad- 
dressing his brethren, Joseph said : " As for you, 
ye meant evil against me ; but God meant it for 
good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save 
much people alive." This was the truth on the 
inch-scale that is illustrated by Pharaoh on the 
wider scale of the world and the ages. Our 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL Y3 

Henry VIII furnishes a modern illustration of the 
fact that personal wickedness may indirectly con- 
tribute to the public good ; that a bad man may 
become an eminent minister of civilization and 
progress. History teems with instances of the 
overruling of human wrath to human advantage ; 
but is not the supreme instance of this subordina- 
tion recorded in the crucifixion of our Lord? 
"Him, being delivered up by the determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the 
hands of wicked men did crucify and slay." 
Judas, Caiaphas, Pilate, guilty of supreme wicked- 
ness, yet became ministers of grace, and the 
divine purpose of redemption was accomplished 
through their crimson crimes. We make our- 
selves whatever we are ; we do whatsoever we 
list ; but, after that, all become ministers of 
heaven's sovereign will : consciously or uncon- 
sciously, willingly or unwillingly, white angels or 
black slaves, we alike execute the one eternal 
purpose of righteousness and love. 

Ye are slaves unto yourselves — 
Servants of the mighty God. 

Bad institutions work gracious effects. Im- 
portant qualities and virtues are developed by 
military life, and in various ways war has proved 
a source of blessing ; not, however, because war 
is in any real sense good : it is a terrible evil over- 
ruled by heaven to ends of liberty and progress 
which ought to be attained on happier lines. 



U THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

Bates tells how he watched pieces of porous 
pumice-stone floating on the Amazon which had 
drifted down from the distant volcanoes of the 
Andes, and were being carried to the Atlantic. 
He believed that these fragments of lava, borne 
by ocean currents, transported in the particles of 
earth lodged in their cavities seeds and plants 
destined to bloom on distant shores. Thus the 
destructive becomes the constructive ; the ashes 
of the volcano are converted into messengers of 
life and beauty. Yet, far more wonderful, God 
has compelled war into the service of civilization, 
and out of its red ruin brought consequences 
which constitute the best wealth of nations. 

Bad movements often eventuate in good. The 
French Revolution, for example, was a bloody 
orgie ; yet thinking men are agreed that, in im- 
portant particulars, it has contributed to the larger 
liberty and enrichment of mankind. A while ago 
a terrible cloud of locusts settled on certain dis- 
tricts of South Africa, threatening their utter dev- 
astation, when in the very nick of time disease 
broke out amongst the destroyers, a strange 
parasite attacked them, and they perished by 
millions, fertilizing the soil they threatened to 
devastate. This was the splinter of a great law 
that is operative everywhere, operative always. 
St. Paul writes of the moral law as "working 
death by that which is good " ; on the contrary, 
divine Providence is ever working life and 
blessing by that which is evil. 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 75 

Let us adoringly own the wisdom, love, and 
power which untiringly grapple with evil — de- 
feating its diplomacy, penetrating its frauds, out- 
generalling it, causing the plague to bring heal- 
ing in its wings, transforming the instruments of 
violence and wrong into vessels fit for the altar. 
Certain men smile when they read of swords be- 
ing beaten into ploughshares and spears into 
pruning-hooks ; they dismiss such prophecy as 
the merest poetry. But these transformations are 
already in course of accomplishment. Students 
assure us that the harp, by a long series of 
modifications, has been developed out of the bow 
of the primitive savage ; one string was added to 
another, until an article originally devised for 
murderous purpose has been finally changed into 
an instrument discoursing sweet music, the symbol 
of strife and suffering has become the symbol of 
gaiety and delight. It is a parable of the purify- 
ing and transforming energy now at work on the 
whole infernal paraphernalia, bringing it into the 
service of godliness and humanity. Evil things 
are being purged of the vicious elements which 
deform, dishonour, and destroy ; they are being 
restored to beauty, to beneficence, and noblest 
uses. 

Let us not be overpowered by the vision of the 
power of evil. Whatever is done against us in 
our personal life by the injustice of men or the 
maliciousness of demons shall, whilst we remain 
faithful, work for our final gain. What is the 



Y6 THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

moral of the Book of Job but the subordination of 
alien wrath to the profit of the saint? From a 
great fight of unmerited affliction we see the 
patriarch emerge more rich and powerful than 
when the storm burst upon him, and with a deep- 
ened experience that must have given to his re- 
stored prosperity tenfold interest and satisfaction. 
The government of God extorted from the malice 
of hell splendid spoils in which Job was arrayed. 
So now with every loyal child of God. "All 
things work together for good to them that love 
God." Even the most cruel and wicked things 
shall serve the followers of that which is good. 
Taking a wider view, we see that this coercive 
action of the divine sovereignty extends to the 
whole drama of cosmic history. This is the argu- 
ment of St. Paul in his great Epistle to the Ro- 
mans. " Where sin abounded, grace did abound 
more exceedingly : that, as sin reigned in death, 
even so might grace reign through righteousness 
unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
" For I reckon that the sufferings of this present 
time are not worthy to be compared with the 
glory which shall be revealed to us-ward." We 
are satisfied that Perowne's interpretation of our 
text is correct : " With the remainder of wrath 
Thou girdest Thyself" ; that is, God puts it on, 
so to speak, as an ornament — clothes Himself 
therewith to His own glory. In the end of the 
ages the Eternal One will be only magnified by 
the mighty revolt, His universe rendered more 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL YT 

magnificent, His government confirmed forever, 
and all His saints glorified with Him in the life 
everlasting. 

Though the stream that bubbleth from ye 

May be black as hell itself, 
It shall issue in His glory, 

It shall mirror forth Himself. 

Again we say, Let us not be affrighted by the 
pride and boast of unrighteousness. In our open- 
ing remarks we admitted how much plausibility 
attached to the Satanic revolt, and promised it 
success ; but whilst the arch traitor fixed his eye 
on the legions of his train, the power of his en- 
chanted weapons, the subtleties of his strategy, 
how much did he overlook that ought to have 
given him pause ! The impenetrability of truth, 
the energy of righteousness, the sovereign charm 
of love, the invincibility of innocence and purity 
— these are the qualities with which evil has to 
reckon. The Apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthians, 
" Ye look at the things that are before your face." 
Or, as A. S. Way translates it, " Have you eyes 
for the outward semblance only?" And this is 
repeatedly our fault in estimating the place and 
power of evil. We have eyes for the external 
aspect of it, we consider only the surface of things. 
Our view must be more profound. The power 
of ungodliness and iniquity is represented in reve- 
lation by the wild, raging sea which threatens to 
engulf the nations, whilst yet it is held in check 



78 THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 

by dust, the plaything of a child. On the other 
hand, the power of God is represented by "the 
waters of Shiloah which go softly." But few 
things are more wonderful than the energy of 
waters which go softly. Away in the great canon 
of Arizona may be seen how a quiet stream of 
water has eaten through miles of solid rock, and 
cut sheer down through thousands of yards of 
massive limestone to make itself a channel. No 
explosive gunpowder, no blasting dynamite, only 
the conquest of softness and silence. The river 
that maketh glad the city of our God, that mur- 
murs quiet music as it gently flows, shall eat its 
way through rocks and mountains, and make the 
barren wastes to sing. Let us have great faith in 
the mysterious forces which though simple are 
subtle, silent yet strong, slow but sure. " There 
He brake the arrows of the bow ; the shield, and 
the sword, and the battle." He whose dwelling- 
place is Zion, vanquishes the powers of darkness ; 
He whose tabernacle is in Salem, by the breath 
of His mouth routs the alien army clothed in 
lightning and thunder. " At Thy rebuke, O God 
of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a 
dead sleep. Thou, even Thou, art to be feared." 
To doubt is disloyalty, to falter is sin ; for the 
kingdom that cometh without observation is the 
kingdom of God and of His Christ, and He shall 
reign, He shall reign the wide world over, He 
shall reign forever. " For though we walk in the 
flesh, we do not war according to the flesh (for 



THE DIVINE COERCION OF EVIL 79 

the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, 
but mighty before God to the casting down of 
strongholds) ; casting down imaginations, and 
every high thing that is exalted against the knowl- 
edge of God, and bringing every thought into 
captivity to the obedience of Christ." 



THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS OF FACT 
AND THEORY 

Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he 
is old ? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be 
born ? — John iii. 4. 

The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can 
this Man give us His fie sh to eat? — John vi. 52. 

But some one will say, How are the dead raised? and with 
what manner of body do they come? — 1 Cor. xv. 35. 

WE sometimes find ourselves in this posi- 
tion. Certain great articles of our creed 
appeal to us almost irresistibly, yet we 
are not able to satisfy our logical sense concern- 
ing them ; and because we cannot explain either 
to ourselves or to others the philosophy of the al- 
leged facts, we hesitate to accept them as such. 
"How can a man be born when he is old?" 
" How can this Man give us His flesh to eat ? " 
"How are the dead raised?" We do not com- 
prehend the origin, method, or working of the 
thing, therefore are tempted to disallow it. In 
our anxiety for a theory we do injustice to the 
fact. What course ought we, then, to follow 
when the claims of fact and theory thus seem to 
come into conflict ? 

On the one hand, we are urged to suppress in- 
quisitiveness. We must abstain from inquiry into 

80 



OF FACT AND THEOEY 81 

sources, methods, operations. We are reminded 
that intellectual refinements have often proved 
mischievous ; and the wiser course is to exclude 
philosophy and metaphysics, and content our- 
selves with a religion that is wholly and purely 
experimental and practical. Whatever truth this 
counsel may contain, it must not be pushed too 
far. In regard to natural things modern science 
has shown how fruitful the spirit of inquiry may 
prove. Here practical men attempt to limit in- 
vestigation ; they are persuaded that it is impossi- 
ble to understand this or that, and they are 
equally confident that if we could acquire such 
knowledge it would be useless. But time has 
often proved the mistake of the practical. Gro- 
ping in the darkness, the theorist lights upon great 
truths and laws, and the whole world is enriched. 
So in regard to religion : we must be at liberty to 
inquire, analyze, speculate, to ask the why and 
wherefore, the whence and whither. The restless 
and insatiable desire to examine, and to examine 
all subjects without exception, high and low, near 
and far, human and divine, is the secret of civiliza- 
tion and the spring of progress. We must take 
care how we attempt to suppress " the obstinate 
questionings " of our deepest nature ; without 
them there is no life in belief, no expansions of the 
horizon. 

Yet, on the other hand, we must not permit in- 
quisitiveness to prevent our acceptance of facts. 
If anything presents itself to us with the clearness, 



82 THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS 

power, and persistence of a fact, we must not at- 
tempt to deny it because we cannot divine its 
secret. The natural philosopher is frequently un- 
able to satisfy himself concerning various elements 
with which he has to deal, or concerning the laws 
which govern these elements ; but, having assured 
himself of the fact, he accepts it as such, gives it 
full weight in all his calculations, and waits for 
larger knowledge. Thus ought we to act in relig- 
ious life and belief; not denying conspicuous 
facts because we cannot grasp their philosophy. 
However profound the mystery that the fact may 
involve, we must accept the fact, allow its full 
significance, and wait for further light. 

Let us, then, seek to bring these general re- 
marks to bear upon particular instances of relig- 
ious difficulty. 

I. The Mystery of the Origin of the 
Spiritual Life. " How can a man be born 
when he is old ? " Our Lord taught Nicodemus 
that to enter into the kingdom of God — that is, to 
see God, to discern His will, to become capable 
of doing it, and so to be fit to see His face — de- 
manded a profound change in our nature, a 
change so deep and radical that it is properly a 
rebirth, a new creation. This perplexed and of- 
fended the rabbi. He could understand how a 
man might be educated into a theologian, or disci- 
plined into an ecclesiastic ; but how our deepest 
nature should suffer a radical change under the 
action of God's Spirit was a mystery with which 



OF FACT AND THEOEY 83 

he could not grapple, and which therefore he was 
not prepared to accept. " How can these things 
be?" Many to-day are perplexed, as Nicodemus 
was. They understand religion on its educa- 
tional and tangible side ; but the doctrine of re- 
generation, of conversion, perplexes and offends 
them. They will consent to the faith of Christ, to 
the Church of Christ, excepting this one doctrine, 
which is of its very essence. 

Yet what of the fact ? Only as our interior eyes 
are enlightened can we see the kingdom of God ; 
only as our mind, affections, conscience, and will 
are raised and energized by the Holy Spirit can 
we enter into that kingdom and share its right- 
eousness and blessedness. Such is the teaching 
of the Master, and tens of thousands in all genera- 
tions testify to the truth of His teaching. They 
are conscious that they have experienced this very 
change ; they know it is a fact, the most glorious 
fact of their history. They have been trans- 
formed in the spirit of their mind ; they henceforth 
walk in newness of life. These witnesses will 
vary much as to what brought it all about, as to 
their recognition of the time and place of awaken- 
ing, and many features of the experiences through 
which they passed ; but concerning the substantial 
fact itself, that the Spirit of God has imparted to 
them a higher life, given them a clean heart, and 
renewed within them a right spirit, they bear 
testimony to it as the most indubitable and 
blessed fact of their life. Let there be no mistake 



84 THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS 

about it ; that penitent men are turned from dark- 
ness to light, and from the power of Satan unto 
God, is one of the best authenticated facts in the 
history of the race. 

But, it is objected, the doctrine of conversion is 
unparalleled, there is nothing corresponding with 
it in the natural world ! Is this so ? Our Lord re- 
minded Nicodemus that in natural phenomena he 
would find a parallel to the spiritual doctrine in 
question. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knoweth 
not whence it cometh and whither it goeth : so is 
every one that is born of the Spirit." The wind is 
impalpable, its movements unaccountable, but its 
existence and action are unquestionable ; so the 
Spirit acts in an invisible realm and by laws little 
understood, yet the blessed consequences of His 
presence and influence have been demonstrated in 
the experience and character of millions. And we 
may easily continue this line of analogy, which is 
more than analogy. Let us cease to argue as 
though the doctrine of regeneration were an 
arbitrary dogma of the Church, having no dupli- 
cates elsewhere. Nature teems with the doctrine 
of conversion. That the base may become pure, 
the mean be exalted, ugliness change to beauty, 
the worthless become precious, the pestilent useful, 
the disgusting delightful, is the work of nature be- 
fore our eyes every hour — nay, it would be more 
proper to say, is nature. " Can we make the 
trampled snow white again? " asks the poet. No, 



OF FACT AND THEORY 85 

we cannot; but the great Chemist can. He 
separates it from the mire, draws it up to heaven, 
refines it in the alembic of the sky, returning it to 
the earth as white and dazzling as it was before. 
Can we purge a black blot ? Perhaps not ; yet if 
God's sun shines upon our ink-pot, it adds the 
very ink to the rainbow. Nature is a great system 
of distillations, exaltations, transmutations, trans- 
formations, transfigurations. When grace cleanses 
the defiled, spiritualizes the sensual, makes that 
which hath lien among the pots as the wings of a 
dove covered with silver and her feathers with 
yellow gold, it does what nature is always doing 
in the lower sphere, and what science glories in 
imitating. 

Recall what is being done by Luther Burbank 
in new creations in plant life, and we shall see 
that the conversion of human nature as a fact and 
process is wonderfully in harmony with the re- 
coveries and ennoblements of the natural sphere. 
His biographer proceeds thus : " Running 
through all his work is the constant effort to 
break up old habits of life. For one reason or 
another the plant has been slowly going down the 
scale, possibly for centuries. To-morrow it must 
be changed. Just as into the life of a man long 
inured to bad habits, the son of evil parents, 
tracing his lineage backward through a century 
of sin — just as there must come into this life some 
tremendous shock, be it a death, a terror, a great 
love, or an overpowering hate, completely chan- 



86 THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS 

ging the course of his life and making an abrupt 
break in the generations of crime ; so in a gentler 
but none the less powerful manner the plant must 
have the overpowering shock of re-creation, it 
must irrevocably break with the past. As in the 
case of the man, so with the flower. The very 
least of Mr. Burbank's labour is the actual break- 
ing up of the plant's life by the shock of re- 
creation, the vastest in its scope that a life can 
bear, such shock as even death does not bring, for 
it is death and life in one — the death of the old 
and the birth of the new. When the past of the 
plant has been broken up, then comes the turning 
of its life-forces into its new channels." * Here is 
conversion in the terms of science ; here is science 
in the terms of theology. Now let me ask, If the 
student of natural law can work this delightful 
change, what may not the divine Gardener of the 
Christian Church do when He puts forth the full- 
ness of His grace and power on the penitent soul ? 
Cannot He break up the old life by "the shock of 
re-creation " ? Cannot He effect " an irrevocable 
break " with our past history? Cannot He abolish 
" the tyranny of bad habits " ? Cannot He " turn 
our life-forces into new channels"? If the hus- 
bandman is able to transform a noxious plant into 
a veritable palm of paradise, lovely in form, rich in 
fruition, delicious in perfume, cannot He who 
knows all the secrets of love and power change 
the upas-tree of our fallen nature into a tree of 

1 Harwood, New Creations in Plant Life. 



OF FACT AND THEORY 87 

righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He 
may be glorified ? Conversion is not something 
unnatural, irrational, incredible. Surely that 
alone is not unchangeable that it were most de- 
sirable to change. 

"We are His workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus for good works." Let not the mystery be- 
wilder you. As Martin Luther exhorts, " Crucify 
the 'How?'" Repent of past years, turn your 
back on the old life, put the promising, pardoning 
God to the proof ; and you shall know by blessed 
experience that it is possible to pass from death 
unto life. 

II. The Mystery of the Maintenance of 
the Spiritual Life. " The Jews therefore strove 
one with another, saying, How can this Man give 
us His flesh to eat?" As there is mystery in the 
origination of the spiritual life, so is there mystery 
in its maintenance. This sixth chapter of St. John 
is designed to teach that, as our spiritual being is 
re-created in Christ Jesus, so the life of the soul is 
maintained through fellowship with Him. As 
bread and water satisfy bodily need, so He satis- 
fies the spiritual craving of our nature, and satis- 
fies it so absolutely that there is no need of seek- 
ing any other. " Jesus said unto them, I am the 
bread of life : he that cometh to Me shall not 
hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never 
thirst." " I am the living bread which came down 
out of heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he 
shall live forever : yea, and the bread which I will 



88 THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS 

give is My flesh, for the life of the world." "As 
the living Father sent Me, and I live because of 
the Father ; so he that eateth Me, he also shall live 
because of Me." Intimate oneness with Christ is 
the secret of spiritual, moral, and eternal life. 

At this teaching the Jews revolted. " Many 
therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, 
said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" 
" Upon this many of His disciples went back, and 
walked no more with Him." Do not many to-day 
similarly object to the doctrine of personal union 
with Christ? That association with the Church 
may constitute a man a Christian ; that an intel- 
lectual acquiescence in the Christian creed entitles 
us to rank with believers ; that participation in 
Christian sacraments and ordinances possesses a 
certain religious virtue, — all this they can accept, 
all this is intelligible : but that we live a spiritual 
life, maintained by constant fellowship with the 
risen Lord, is an assumption nothing less than a 
piece of mysticism which they decline. 

But what of the fact ? Within the Church of 
God is a vast multitude of the noblest and purest 
men and women living on the earth. They are 
just, blameless, patient, self-sacrificing, ideal in 
character and conduct. They far transcend the 
dead, sunken level of ordinary human nature. 
Cynical critics are fond of enlarging upon the 
frailties and follies of their fellows ; but really this 
scorn is gratuitous and useless : there is nothing 
to wonder at here ; it is exactly what we might 



OF FACT AND THEORY 89 

expect. The thing to beget wonder is the host of 
the saints who live at such an elevation beyond 
the level of our normal nature. When we remem- 
ber the strength of our lower passions, the weak- 
ness of our higher instincts, the coarsening influ- 
ences of the world, the power of temptation, the 
pressure of trial, the mystery of society is the pres- 
ence in it of the spiritual, the spotless, the self-for- 
getting, yes, the uncommon good. These are in 
our midst, they are more numerous than many of 
us can discern, and they constitute the very mira- 
cle of society. Now inquire of these their secret. 
How is it that they remain loyal to the highest 
amid so much that is low ; humble, kind and faith- 
ful; unspotted from the world and the flesh? 
They answer, with unanimous testimony, that 
Christ lives in them, walks in them, and they can 
do all through Him who strengthens them. Their 
identification with Him is the secret of their peace, 
vitality, righteousness, charity, and hope. This is 
the victory by which they overcome themselves 
and the world, even their trust in Him, and daily 
affiance and fellowship with Him. It is "Christ 
in them " the source of purity, the secret of strength, 
the hope of glory. What can we say to this ? It 
is a fact not to be denied or explained away. 

But it is objected, There is nothing like this 
doctrine of union with Christ in the spheres of life 
with which we are otherwise familiar ; we can un- 
derstand the processes of natural life and nourish- 
ment, but not this. Is this so? Christ compares 



90 THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS 

Himself with the vine, and represents His disci- 
ples as the branches : do we, then, understand the 
subtle processes by which the vine draws virtue 
from the soil, and by which the sap is converted 
into fibre, leaf, and cluster ? A naturalist remarks : 
"The biography of a tropical tree has never been 
written. When it is, few books will equal it in in- 
terest." The biography of no tree has ever been 
written ; and, so far as concerns its inwardness, 
never will. We see only the exterior, the mecha- 
nism, whilst the life, the growth, the fruition, are 
impenetrable secrets. Our Lord compares Him- 
self with the bread by which we live : do we, then, 
understand how the food we consume becomes the 
basis of our corporeal life ? The mystery of mat- 
ter, the mystery of life, the mystery of growth, are 
the persistent problems of philosophy ; and it is 
folly to pretend that we comprehend all that is in- 
volved in the nourishment of a plant or in the suc- 
couring of the body. Do we, then, consent to 
starve because life and its maintenance imply im- 
penetrable secrets ? We postpone the philosophy, 
and concern ourselves with the fact. 

It is even more true that we cannot follow the 
processes by which our intellectual life is nourished. 
Who can explain the subtle workings by which 
the scientific mind feeds on truth or the poetic 
imagination feeds on beauty ? That the intellect 
exists, that it is sustained, invigorated, and de- 
veloped, are delightful facts none will presume to 
gainsay ; but how this is all brought to pass is a 



OF FACT AND THEORY 91 

world of absolute mystery. Why, then, if our 
physical and psychic life is thus hidden, should 
we expect to apprehend all the mystery of our 
spiritual life, assimilation, and development ? 

Let us not murmur with these Jews, blinded 
as they were by carnality. Put the doctrine of 
this sixth chapter of St. John to the proof. Once 
more I say with Luther, "Crucify the 'How?' 
" Taste and see that the Lord is gracious." Seek 
to see Him, to trust Him, to brood over Him, to 
drink in His Spirit, to live and dwell with Him. 
"Feed upon Him in your heart, by faith with 
thanksgiving. " Then shall you know the truth 
of the Master's great words, " Except ye eat the 
flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye 
have not life in yourselves. He that eateth My 
flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life ; and 
I will raise him up at the last day." 

III. The Mystery of the Consummation 
of the Spiritual Life. " But some one will say, 
How are the dead raised ? and with what manner 
of body do they come ? " This question concern- 
ing the resurrection-body may represent the whole 
mystery of the future. 

The resurrection of the dead is a doctrine every- 
where taught directly or by revelation. In the 
Old Testament it appears in gleams more or less 
bright. It is impossible to understand much of 
the Old Testament unless we are willing to allow 
that the Hebrews substantially held the belief of a 
resurrection of the dead. In the New Testament 



92 THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS 

the doctrine becomes cardinal. It is of the essence 
of the teaching of our Lord and of His apostles. 
" Now is Christ risen from the dead ; and become 
the first-fruits of them that slept." Rationalistic 
critics, whose role it is to reduce the supernatural 
element in revelation to a minimum, refine away 
the narrative of our Lord's resurrection and ascen- 
sion until it becomes little more than a religious 
version of Jack and the Beanstalk ; but if we are 
to accept anything in the New Testament as 
literally and absolutely true, it is the record of our 
Lord's resurrection. His body was raised from 
the dead ; His tomb was vacant ; His corporeal 
nature appeared identically the same, yet in cer- 
tain qualities profoundly changed ; a multitude of 
witnesses testify to His real, spiritualized, and 
glorified Presence. And the resurrection of the 
Christ is the pattern and pledge of the resurrection 
of all who believe in Him. The New Testament 
glows with the doctrines of resurrection, glorifica- 
tion, immortality. 

But exactly here many object to the Christian 
faith. " Now when they heard of the resurrection 
of the dead, some mocked." And as these 
Athenians did, so do many to this hour. " How 
are the dead raised? and with what manner of 
body do they come ? " Because they cannot 
understand the processes implied in the resurrec- 
tion, and find a satisfactory theory of another 
world and a future life, they hesitate to accept the 
glorious creed which declares, " I believe in the 



OF FACT AND THEORY 93 

resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." 
These doubters and deniers affirm that in the 
whole range of nature there is nothing analogous 
to the resurrection ; they maintain that we have 
no knowledge or experience of any answering up- 
lifting and glorification. " It is sown in corrup- 
tion; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in 
dishonour ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in 
weakness ; it is raised in power : it is sown a 
natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." To 
this they respond, " We have no experience of any 
such ennoblement, and cannot believe it." 

Yet is this so ? Are there not facts before our 
eyes brought to light by modern science which 
prove the marvellous plasticity and immense 
possibilities of animal organization ? The late 
Prof. H. G. Seely writes thus : " The two types 
of true wings are limited to birds and bats ; and 
no living reptile approximates to developing such 
an organ of flight as a wing. Judged, therefore, 
by the method of comparing the anatomical 
structures of one animal with another, which is 
termed 'comparative anatomy,' the existence of 
flying reptiles might be pronounced impossible. 
But in the light which the revelations of geology 
afford, our convictions become tempered with 
modesty ; and we learn that with Nature nothing 
is impossible, in development of animal structure." l 
And he proceeds to explain how the crocodile and 
bird have descended from a common ancestor. 

1 Dragons of the Air, p. 36. 



94: THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS 

That the bird is a near relative of the lizard is a 
commonplace of science ; and unless nearly all 
our great authorities are at fault, the bird is 
descended, though not from any existing reptile, 
yet from ancestors that were definitely reptilian. 
The scale of the reptile corresponds to the feather 
of the bird ; indeed, the most elaborate feather is 
only a much-divided scale. The plume of the 
ostrich, the wing of the albatross, the tail-feather 
of the lyre-bird, the train of the peacock, the 
gorgeous plumage of the bird of paradise, are 
only the much differentiated, highly wrought, 
and transfigured scales of the lizard of the 
primitive slime. 1 

Now, if God can effect these physical exalta- 
tions ; if, by one magical touch added to another 
He can glorify the animal, as a great painter by 
a thousand caresses creates out of coarse paint a 
prismatic masterpiece ; what may He not do when 
He puts forth the fullness of His power on the 
bodies of His saints ? If Almightiness can educe 
from snake, lizard, or crocodile the sweet minstrel 
that sings at heaven's gate, the golden eagle that 
soars in the sun, the bird of paradise that lights 
with splendour the forest, why should not the 
redeeming God "fashion anew the body of our 
humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body 
of His glory, according to the working whereby 
He is able even to subject all things unto Him- 
self " ? When I hear the scientist declaring that 

^eadley, Structure and Life of Birds. 



OF FACT AND THEORY 95 

" nothing - is impossible in development of animal 
structure," and that the superb singers of the sky- 
have been evolved from some ancient reptile, I 
fancy myself listening to a naturalistic priest read- 
ing the funeral service : " It is sown in corrup- 
tion ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in 
dishonour ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in 
weakness ; it is raised in power : it is sown a 
natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body." Only 
this time it is not the funeral service, but the ode 
of the resurrection ; for the resurrection is past 
already, and in the bird of paradise the body of 
glory is already before the celebrant's eyes. We 
do not set this argument forth as a demonstration 
of the resurrection of the body ; it does, however, 
entitle us to ask, " Why is it judged incredible 
with you, if God doth raise the dead ? " If He 
can effect these marvellous transformations in the 
brute world, surely He may conserve and perfect 
in a manner yet more wonderful the bodily and 
spiritual life of His elect and redeemed. 

Let us not, then, decline the future because we 
cannot frame any satisfactory theory of it. Once 
more, " Crucify the ' How ? ' " We know not what 
we shall be, but we know that when He shall 
appear we shall be like Him. Whilst we peep, 
and guess, and sigh, let our supreme anxiety be 
that we are fit to see His face. 



VI 

THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 

Search me, O God, and know my heart : try me, and know my 
thoughts : and see if there be any way of wickedness in me, and 
lead me in the way everlasting. — Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. 

IN this wonderful psalm the divine attributes 
of omnipresence and omniscience are most 
eloquently set forth. It is a large subject; 
but the writer does not lose himself in immensity 
— he recognizes its immediate personal bearing. 
" O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. 
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising. 
Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou 
searchest out my path and my lying down, and 
art acquainted with all my ways." And the moral 
bearing of the solemn theme is felt by the psalmist 
to be of the first consequence. He does not con- 
template the divine immanence and transcendence 
like a poet, nor treat it as a philosopher, meta- 
physician, or theologian. He is fully alive to the 
fact that the all-pervading Spirit is the Spirit of 
righteousness, and he dares to solicit that the all- 
illuminating, all-cleansing eye of God shall search 
his breast. " Search me, O God, and know my 
heart : try me, and know my thoughts." No mere 
poetry or speculation is here ; all is made of im- 

96 



THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 97 

mediate, personal, moral concern. That every 
lurking weakness or evil of his nature may be 
revealed and destroyed, the speaker is prepared 
to submit himself to the fierce light streaming 
from the great white throne. In his absolute sin- 
cerity he is willing to lay bare the very grounds 
of his nature and inmost life to the divine criticism. 

I. The Examination Invoked. 

i. Mark the range of this examination. " Search 
me, O God, and know my heart." Bishop Hors- 
ley's translation reads: " O Jehovah, Thou hast 
explored me, and Thou knowest me." God knows 
him because He has explored him. The psalmist 
stands perplexed before the mystery of his own 
being ; he is at once ignorant of himself and yet 
mistrustful of himself ; he does not know himself, 
yet knows himself sufficiently well to suspect him- 
self ; therefore he appeals to the Spirit who search- 
eth all things. How true it is that we are mainly 
unknown to ourselves ; that within us are unex- 
plored regions ; that our heart is substantially 
undiscovered ! Schopenhauer one day strayed 
into the Royal Gardens of Berlin ; and when an 
officer inquired of him, "Who are you, sir?" the 
philosopher responded, " I don't know ; I shall be 
glad if you can tell me." The officer reported 
him for a lunatic ; but he was far from that — he 
was one who had deeply pondered the mystery of 
personality, and was accordingly puzzled by it. 

Yes, what strangers we are to ourselves ! Within 
us are untraversed continents ; mountain-peaks of 



98 THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 

aspiration, capped with cloud ; volcanoes whose 
existence is betrayed every now and again as they 
drop blazing lava on our path ; cataracts of power 
and passion ; jungles in whose depths lurk wild 
beasts ; fiery deserts of strange thirsts and seduc- 
tive mirages ; icy poles of drear discontents and 
despairs ; ungotten wealth of faculty and sensi- 
bility ; treasures of darkness ; and vast skies sown 
with mysterious stars and ominous meteors. Our 
personality is largely unmapped ; the heights and 
depths of the soul, its capacities and forces, its 
possibilities for good and evil, are only dimly per- 
ceived and faintly understood. We know more of 
the world outside than we do of the universe 
within us. The psychological Columbus has not 
yet arrived ; no Cortez has yet scaled the peaks of 
the soul. 

But what is beyond our ken is set in the light of 
God's countenance. All the sacred writers speak 
with awe of His knowledge of our subtle nature, 
of His unique knowledge. We are told that 
radiography — that is, the photography of the in- 
terior of the human body by means of the X-rays 
— has recently been greatly improved. So rapidly 
can the human body be radiographed that snap- 
shots can be taken with the rays, and Dr. Rosen- 
thal, of Munich, has photographed the heart of a 
living person in one-tenth of a second. Now, this 
lightning picture of a human heart fairly repre- 
sents those flashes of insight we occasionally get 
into our essential self, of which the physical organ 



THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 99 

is a metaphor. At the back of our reasonings, 
feelings, and volitions is a world unknown except 
as it is revealed by glimpses and expressed in 
guesses. But He who made us in the lowest parts 
of the earth comprehends us and knows us alto- 
gether. "For Thou, even Thou only, knowest 
the hearts of all the children of men." As the 
whole physical universe is known to the Almighty 
Spirit, as He calls every star by name, and in- 
habits every province ; so the rational universe is 
displayed to the divine gaze, and there is no mys- 
tery of body, brain, or spirit to Him. " There is 
no creature that is not manifest in His sight : but 
all things are naked and laid open before the eyes 
of Him with whom we have to do." 

Here, then, the psalmist pleads that the Spirit 
immanent in the natural world in all its vastness 
and manifoldness will similarly pervade the interior 
world. " Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ? or 
whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I 
ascend up into heaven, Thou art there : if I make 
my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I 
take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the 
uttermost parts of the sea ; even there shall Thy 
hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me." 
So, pleads the psalmist, As Thou art everywhere 
in the material universe, diffusing light, maintain- 
ing harmony, conserving health, creating life, 
scattering beauty ; as there is no corner of space 
without Thy knowledge, presence, and quicken- 
ing : so explore my whole nature, destroy all the 



100 THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 

hidden evil, correct every false bias, foster and 
perfect any possibility of righteousness. The 
word " thought " in the twenty-third verse signifies 
branches, branchings of the act of thinking. 1 So 
the psalmist pleads with the Holy Spirit to search 
and hallow all the ramifications of his thought, the 
whole sphere of his perceiving, reflecting, feeling, 
and determination ; all that pertains to the 
sources, processes, expressions, and far-reaching 
consequences of thought. " Thus saith the Lord, 
I know the things that come into your mind, 
every one of them." Therefore must we put our 
trust, not in our partial and superficial inspections, 
but in His searchings and findings who knows the 
whole mystery and history of the soul. 

2. The depth of this examination. " And know 
my thoughts" " My inward thoughts, my distant 
thoughts, the thoughts not yet come into my 
mind." Ewald translates this, "Prove me, and 
know my dreams" Not the dreams of the night, 
which are fantastic and negligible; but the 
waking dream, the first ghostly inception of the 
act. As David expressed it in his admonition to 
Solomon: "And thou, Solomon, my son, know 
thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a 
perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the 
Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all 
the imagination of the thoughts." And this ex- 
pression is used in several other places. Before 
the contemplation of the deed, or the articulation 

1 Delitzsch. 



THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 101 

of the word, come imagination, inclination, curi- 
osity, reverie. The sympathy, brooding, longing, 
that precede the idea ; the thought that comes 
before the word, the wish that is father of the 
thought. All acts are first dreams, too faint for 
definition, too elusive for anything like satisfactory 
explanation ; and evil acts are first evil dreams so 
shadowy as apparently to be without serious sig- 
nification. Every robbery is first transacted in the 
phantom gold of imagination ; murder is first re- 
hearsed within the closed doors of secret malice ; 
we lie in our heart before we lie with our tongue ; 
the unclean act is born in a sullied fancy ; deeds 
of pride, covetousness, and ambition are first 
dalliances with mental imagery and emotional 
moods apparently far from reality. Our dreams 
indicate what we potentially are, they forecast 
what we may actually become, and they have a 
strange trick of fulfilling themselves. Yes, this is 
the main matter — what we mean in our heart of 
hearts, what lies at the bottom of our heart. " All 
mind finally becomes visible." 

Standing on a low moral level, we cannot dis- 
cern the truth concerning our deepest self ; that is 
possible only to " the Holiest in the height." It is 
a fact well known to seamen that objects under 
water, such as shoals and sunken rocks, become 
visible, or more visible, when viewed from a 
height ; and it is customary at sea, when a sunken 
object is suspected of lying in a vessel's course, 
but cannot be seen from the deck, to send a man 



102 THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 

aloft, when the higher he can climb the mast the 
farther will his vision penetrate beneath the waves. 
From the top of a lofty cliff the depth is seen bet- 
ter still ; whilst the elevation of a balloon enables 
the spectator to see most perfectly beneath the 
surface, and to detect the sunken mines, torpedoes, 
and the like which may be concealed there. Now, 
just as there is an optical reason why the depth is 
best penetrated from the height, so there is a moral 
reason why the holy God best knows the plagues 
and perils of the human heart. He who from the 
pure heaven of eternal light and purity looks down 
into the depths of the heart is cognizant of its de- 
fects long before they report themselves in the 
creature-consciousness. Repeatedly in revelation 
is the moral loftiness of God associated with His 
detection and abhorrence of human sin. "The 
righteous God trieth the hearts and reins." " The 
Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in 
heaven : His eyes behold, His eyelids try the chil- 
dren of men." Just as in the natural world the 
depth is discerned from the height ; so in the spir- 
itual sphere He who is high and lifted up in the 
glory of holiness is conscious most, and conscious 
first, of the wrong that is in His universe, however 
it may be disguised or concealed. " He revealeth 
the deep and secret things : He knoweth what is 
in the darkness ; and the light dwelleth with Him." 
The same fact is illustrated in the history of our 
Lord. "But Jesus did not trust Himself unto 
them ; for He knew all men." By virtue of His 



THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 103 

supreme purity He became conscious of the im- 
purity and treasonableness of the most specious, 
and did not commit Himself unto them. 

It is one thing to examine ourselves ; it is another 
to surrender ourselves unreservedly to the divine 
criticism. St. Paul writes : " Try your own selves, 
whether ye be in the faith ; prove your own selves " 
(2 Cor. xiii. 5). Yet, whilst he wrote this, he was 
entirely conscious that we may make serious mis- 
takes concerning ourselves ; for in addressing this 
selfsame church on a former occasion, he con- 
fessed : "Yea, I judge not mine own self. For I 
know nothing against myself ; yet am I not hereby 
justified : but He that judgeth me is the Lord" 
(1 Cor. iv. 3, 4). He was not conscious of any 
dereliction of duty ; yet he might be deceived, and 
therefore submitted himself to the Lord for judg- 
ment. Not for one moment can we understand 
and estimate ourselves as does He who searcheth 
the heart. When, in 1896, the engineers were 
planning the foundations for the Williamsburg 
Bridge, New York, the deepest of their twenty- 
two borings was a hundred and twelve feet below 
high water. Steel drills had indicated bed-rock 
from twelve to twenty feet higher than was the 
actual case ; the diamond drill, however, showed 
the supposed bed-rock to be merely a deposit of 
boulders. So the diamond drill of God pierces 
our self-delusions, detects the fallacy of our as- 
sumptions, proves what we thought sterling to be 
only stones of emptiness, discloses the very truth 



104: THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 

of things far down the secret places of the 
soul. 

Here again, then, the psalmist seeks to shelter 
himself in omnipresence, to engage omniscience to 
work on his behalf. He resolves to think, live, and 
act beneath the divine search-light. He prays : 
" Warn me against the submarines which steal 
upon me with smooth, insidious death ; protect 
me from the devil-fish which wait their hour in 
dark, unfathomed caves ; be to me a beacon 
against sunken rock and treacherous shoal ; pilot 
me clear of the cruel torpedoes which line the 
channels of life." It is the prayer of the patriarch : 
"That which I see not, teach Thou me ; if I have 
done iniquity, I will do no more." It is the prayer 
of the psalmist : " Who can discern his errors ? 
Clear Thou me from hidden faults." 

3. The severity of this examination. "Try me" 
" Prove me." He is willing to be subjected to se- 
vere discipline that the falseness and foulness of 
nature shall be sevenfold purified. In the Revised 
Version the third verse stands, "Thou searchest 
out my path and my lying down." But the mar- 
gin reads, "Thou winnowest my path" — a close 
and cleansing scrutiny. As the thresher separates 
the golden corn from the valueless chaff, so the 
psalmist prays that the divine Analyst will deliver 
him from whatever is gross and worthless. Said 
John the Baptist, " He that cometh after me is 
mightier than I : whose fan is in His hand, and He 
will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor ; and 



THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 105 

He will gather His wheat into the garner, but the 
chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire." This 
is He whose verdict we challenge. Or, to change 
the image, the psalmist is ready to suffer the se- 
vere ordeal of the refiner. " Try me," as reputed 
gold is tested. Solomon writes, " The fining-pot 
is for silver, and the furnace for gold : but the Lord 
trieth the hearts." The psalmist welcomes the 
biting of the flame so that pretense should be ex- 
pelled from his truth, temper refined out of his 
zeal, pride purged from his humility, self-will dis- 
charged from his conscientiousness, and the scum 
of hypocrisy no longer dim the gold of his good- 
ness. The consummate ability of Stas, the Belgian 
chemist, is celebrated because he " eliminated from 
his chemicals every trace of that pervasive ele- 
ment, sodium, so thoroughly that even its spec- 
troscopic detection was impossible." But such is 
the efficacy of divine grace that it can eliminate 
so thoroughly every trace of that pervasive and 
persistent element known as sin that we may be 
presented before the throne holy and unreprovable 
and without blemish. That the sincere may attain 
this purification, they are prepared to pass through 
the hot fires of bitter and manifold discipline. 

II. The Design of this Examination. 
The ulterior purpose, as expressed by the text, is 
twofold. 

I. Deliverance from our own way of life. 
" See if there be any way of wickedness in me." 
The psalmist recognizes that human life is de- 



106 THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 

termined from within. The " way " is first " in " 
us. How often do we see this ! A youth is set 
in the right path, every assistance is secured for 
him, every encouragement is given him to pursue 
it ; but he soon breaks away from this, forms 
other habits, adopts other companions, pursues 
an altogether different life. He does not follow 
the path that was opened up to him from the out- 
side, but elects one already traced in his heart. 
We popularly say of such a willful soul, " He took 
his own way, followed his own course." A 
modern cry calls upon us to " fulfill ourselves." 
That really means work out your own fancies, 
tastes, and passions ; propose your own ideals, 
be ruled by self-will, take counsel of the pride 
and passion of your own heart, chase your 
own phantoms. But, as has been said, if every- 
body should "fulfill" himself, it would mean 
pandemonium ; it would be the working out of 
ignorance, egotism, and lust. This is precisely 
what the psalmist deprecates. He urgently pleads 
for deliverance from himself ; from the poisonous 
particle, the diseased fibre, the false substance and 
quality which may exist within him, latent and 
lethargic, waiting for the stimulation of circum- 
stance, opportunity, and association. 

Our own way is a way of emptiness. Some 
would translate these words, " any way of idols in 
me." It signifies the vanity, the unreality, the 
delusiveness of the objects on which the natural 
man fixes his ambition and hope. We sometimes 



THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 107 

say of a thing, " There is nothing in it." We 
may say this of wealth, honour, pleasure, fame ; 
if we make idols of them, we know that an idol is 
nothing in the world. If I follow the desires and 
devices of my own heart, I walk in a vain show 
and disquiet myself in vain. Our own way is a 
way of pain. " See if there is any way of grievous- 
ness in me." The path of self-fulfillment is hard 
and bitter. If the roses in the broad road of 
sensual pleasure, sordid gain, and worldly pride 
are red, there is no wonder; enough blood has 
been shed to make them so. In the forests of 
South America, where gorgeous orchids dazzle 
the eyes and gay blossoms carpet the earth, are 
also creepers furnished with formidable thorns 
known as " the devil's fishing-hooks " ; and as 
these trail insidiously on the ground their presence 
is revealed only by the wounded foot that treads 
upon them. How closely this pictures the way- 
ward, sensual, worldly life, whose flowers of 
colour secrete stinging thorns which lacerate the 
heart ! Our own way is a way of destruction. 
Not leading to a goal of lasting felicity, but de- 
scending into darkness and despair. " There is a 
way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end 
thereof are the ways of death." That is the path 
and doom of self-fulfillment. And we do not 
know why Solomon, in another place, exactly 
repeats this warning ; except, perhaps, because of 
its immense significance, and yet of its likelihood 
to be overlooked. So, then, we must pray that 



108 THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 

God will not abandon us to ourselves ; that we 
may not be permitted to work out the lurking 
naughtiness of our heart. 

The other petition seeks — 

2. Guidance in God's way. "And lead me in 
the way everlasting." The way of final peace, 
security, and progress ; of imperishable strength, 
full felicity, and of eternal life. The New Testa- 
ment is the exposition of this royal road. " Jesus 
saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and 
the life : no one cometh unto the Father, but by 
Me." To fulfill ourselves is to destroy ourselves ; 
the secret of life is to fulfill Him. The crucial 
alternative is, Will we fulfill the Lord Jesus or 
ourselves? live to self or die to self? live unto 
God or to the world? live to the poor, narrow, 
vanishing present, or lay up treasure for the 
future? As He dwells in us we break the 
dominion of past years of selfishness and worldli- 
ness : as we fulfill Him — that is, as our life in His 
grace becomes one of faith, obedience, righteous- 
ness, and self-sacrifice — we find rest unto the soul. 
In Him we enter on the way everlasting ; in Him 
prove the strength to walk therein ; in Him find 
the unfailing guide ; in Him reach the golden 
goal. 

Is this, then, our prayer ? the sigh of our heart ? 
Amid theological uncertainties, controversies, and 
distractions, do we take refuge in this simple 
cry ? — " Lord, teach me, lead me, uphold me, save 
me." " Lord, all my desire is before Thee, and 



THE SIGH OF THE SINCERE 109 

my groaning is not hid from Thee." Are we 
prepared for every renunciation and ordeal that 
this pleading may imply? If so, we shall be 
heard. None can wander or perish with this 
prayer in his heart. 



VII 

THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to 
lead them the way ; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them 
light ; that they might go by day and by night. — Exod. xiii. 21. 

HERE we see in a figure the fact that God 
goes before the race ; anticipating, pro- 
viding, adjusting, so that in due season 
He may bring us into the Canaan of His accom- 
plished purpose. The most cursory view of the 
world and history impresses one with the feeling 
that all things have been thought out beforehand ; 
and closer examination, revealing how the sense 
of the future dominates the present, confirms us in 
the belief of a supernatural, prescient government 
that controls individual life and universal move- 
ment to some ulterior perfection. This special 
aspect we desire now to consider. 

I. The Divine Preparation of the Earth 
as the Scene for Human Life and Disci- 
pline furnishes an instructive illustration of our 
text. Ages before man's advent on this planet 
we behold the divine hand fashioning it for his 
habitation. The darkness that " rested upon the 
face of the waters " was the hiding of the creative 
Spirit whilst He resolved the rude elements into 

no 



THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 111 

order and beauty. Think of the cloud of the 
carboniferous era eclipsing the sun and wrapping 
everything in awful shadow ! Yet the fire and 
darkness of geologic ages were pillars of the Lord 
heralding a new earth. When the race arose out 
of the vasty deep, the world was found exquisitely 
fitted for it, and richly stored with all necessary 
treasure. Preparing the home for the return of 
the bridal party is always an interesting affair. 
How wondrous, then, the garnishing of the earth 
as the home of humanity ! What vast ages were 
demanded ! What an immensity of material ! 
What complex adjustments needed perfecting ! 
What involutions for the angels to wonder at, as 
we now marvel at the evolutions ! The divine 
Architect and Builder dwelt in the twin pillars of 
flame and gloom, ordering all that is ; and when 
the fullness of time brought the sons of God, the 
darkness had been banished, the dragons des- 
troyed, the crypts were replete with wealth, and 
the glowing flowers and singing birds welcomed 
the heir. Whatever was necessary for our phys- 
ical maintenance, intellectual discipline, or social 
joy, was present in lavish abundance. 

What room is here for admiration and rever- 
ence ! Alas ! some see nothing to wonder at in 
the harmony existing between the world and its 
tenants ; but the reverential mind finds endless 
cause for wonder and admiration. In the early 
spring we have noticed the first wild flower of the 
season open by the wayside ; and whilst yet ad- 



112 THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 

miring it, the first butterfly of the year settled 
upon it : they arrived in the same hour to com- 
plete each other. It is a parable of the surprising 
manner in which man and his world complete 
each other, and in which they develop together. 
God "went before us" in wisdom and love, to 
establish ten thousand delicate articulations and 
adjustments between us and our sphere for our 
perfect efficiency and happiness. 

What a firm ground of confidence we find here 
touching the abiding welfare of the race ! Pessi- 
mistic spirits are fond of propounding sceptical 
conundrums respecting the future. What will 
posterity do when the forests are depleted ? what 
when the coal measures fail ? what when popula- 
tion outstrips the means of subsistence ? How 
truly absurd these apprehensions are! As the 
need arises, our scientists open to us storehouses 
which have been sealed from the foundation of 
the world. They are ever discovering new ele- 
ments, lights, forces, fruits, which our fathers 
knew not. The "faithful Creator " has in reserve 
a thousand secret magazines which He will dis- 
cover as the race reaches its successive stages of 
development. Nature abounds with signs that 
God has passed this way before, that He has an- 
ticipated us with the blessings of His goodness, 
and means to see His children through. 

II. The Government of the Race supplies 
another illustration of the divine prescience. The 
future constitutes the main thought of revelation ; 



THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 113 

and it everywhere teaches that the government of 
the world at any given point is regulated by a 
concern for the future, for a distant future. We 
must be struck by the fact that modern philos- 
ophy is so largely occupied with futurity. Fifty 
years ago Positivism, which placed the chief 
emphasis upon the past, was the popular theory. 
A favourite, we may say a cardinal, doctrine of 
this system is that of the dominion of the dead. 
" The growing dominion of the Dead over the 
Living, a truth which is at the bottom of all 
sound explanations in Sociology, as it is at the 
bottom of all harmony in Practical life. In face 
of this irresistible pressure of our ancestors, the 
agitations of our contemporaries grow more and 
more idle, even in situations where they have the 
greatest scope." * And this writer is never weary 
of insisting on the sovereignty of the departed 
generations. The supreme factor in the life of the 
race is the past. True worship is ancestral. The 
centre of gravity is the graveyard. How entirely 
contrary is all this to the predominant philosophy 
of our day 1 In the evolutionary conception, the 
future is the centre of significance. Benjamin 
Kidd regards all the movements of nature and 
society as regulated by the principle of " Projected 
Efficiency.' ' 2 Civilization is not controlled by an- 
tiquity ; the aim of nature is never contemporary 
life ; but everything in the present is subordinated 

1 Comte's Works, vol. ii, p. 380. 

9 The Principles of Western Civilization. 



114: THE PEOPHETIC ELEMENT 

to the interests of the future. The thought of the 
efficiency and welfare of future generations con- 
trols the direction and meaning of the whole evo- 
lutionary process. The centre of significance has 
been changed by the predominant science from 
the past to the future ; the welfare of the unborn 
determines the deepest processes of nature and 
life. The world is not governed by the coffin, but 
by the cradle. 

As already intimated, the whole of revelation is 
pervaded by the thought of the future ; and so far 
it is in correspondence with the accredited science 
of the age. " The Lord went before them in a 
cloud." His purpose is always beyond the pres- 
ent ; and the present is shaped and disciplined 
with a view to that ultimate design which shall 
justify the whole process. In the history of Israel, 
we venture to think, we have an illustration on a 
small scale of God's larger method of government. 
" Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt : Thou 
preparedst room before it." Palestine was pre- 
pared for Israel. " He sent a man before them, 
even Joseph, who was sold for a servant." 
Joseph set in motion a train of events which 
prepared Israel to take possession of Palestine. 
Is not this process of adjustment and progress 
ever going on in the wide world and in the sweep 
of the ages ? Surely God is preparing waste 
lands as theatres of new empire, in due season to 
be occupied by elect nations. We cannot con- 
template vast regions of the earth now opening 



THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 115 

up, climes rich with possibilities, without anticipa- 
ting the period when they will be inherited by 
mighty populations yet unborn. They are the 
waiting Canaans of God's predestined ones. 

The divine foreknowledge is similarly at work 
in providing us with seers and leaders. " He sent 
a man before them, even Joseph." He is always 
sending a Joseph. Pioneers, outriders, heralds, 
missionaries, are ever beckoning on the peoples, 
and showing them the onward path. They come 
in science, industry, discovery, philosophy, gov- 
ernment; they greet suns and summers yet below 
the horizon ; they predict fairer conditions, 
happier methods, better times, and show the 
paths by which coveted heights may be reached. 
As a modern poet sings : 

The soldier, the king, and the peasant 

Are working together in one, 
Till our dream shall become their Present, 

And their work in the world be done. 
They had no vision amazing 
Of the goodly house they are raising, 

They had no divine foreshowing 

Of the land to which they are going ; 
But on one man's soul it hath broken 

A light that doth not depart, 
And his look, or a word he hath spoken, 

Wrought flame in another man's heart. 

So, by the concurrence of the natural and the 
human, heaven is ever bringing its great pur- 
poses to pass. We do not see far, and then see 
dimly, but it is evident that the governing Spirit 



116 THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 

of history works within a much vaster horizon ; 
and the claims of the future are understood and 
answered in the present. We are conditioned by 
time ; but the world is governed in the eternal : 
one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
years as one day. 

Often do the spirits 
Of great events stride on before the events, 
And in to-day already walks to-morrow. 

Whilst thus reassured concerning- the cosmic 
control, let us bring the great truth home to our- 
selves and remember how in our personal history 
God goes before us. It has been argued that we 
ought by this time to have acquired a much 
greater power of discerning the future. One 
writer laments that " it is quite incomprehensible 
that we should not know the future . . . it is 
unpardonably stupid . . . and extremely in- 
convenient.' ' We may readily grant that our 
ignorance of futurity is " extremely inconvenient." 
To go no further, every operator on the Stock 
Exchange is conscious of the misery of this 
vexatious limitation ; but our incapacity in this 
direction is extreme, and it is not likely to be 
removed. Very slowly and dubiously do we 
learn to interpret the simple phenomena of nature, 
and to infer the weather of coming days and 
months; to anticipate events, however, which 
depend upon the mysterious action of a myriad 
human wills is an exercise which promises little 



THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 117 

success. To establish prophecy on the basis of 
science will be the latest achievement of the 
human mind. 

What, then, is our consolation amid the nebu- 
lousness and perplexity of human life ? That our 
times are in His hands who knows the future, and 
whose attribute of prescience ever works on our 
behalf. Sydney Smith's counsel that we should 
take " short views " is excellent ; but the justifica- 
tion of the short view is that we hold the hand of 
One who takes the long view. 



Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene — one step enough for me. 



The justification of our contented short-sighted- 
ness is that He keeps our feet who never loses 
sight of the terminus. With absolute confidence 
may the sincere and faithful dare the unknown ; 
for they know that their life is a plan of God, and 
that He will never fail to superintend its working. 
We have not passed this way before, but He has ; 
therefore we find the table spread, the wells dug, 
the palms flourishing, the rivers bridged, and the 
great rock casting its grateful shade. When the 
day is over, our little children fall asleep without 
giving a thought to the necessities of to-morrow ; 
they rest in a simple confidence that somehow all 
will continue to fall out happily, and that they will 
lack no good thing. Long after they are in bed, 
however, the parent sits up to anticipate, plan, and 



118 THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 

provide for coming days and years ; and the 
smoothness and safety of the child's life are en- 
sured in this loving parental foresight. God does 
the thinking for all His children ; and the reveal- 
ing years prove so rich and gracious because of 
the all-comprehending eye and love. " The Lord 
your God . . . went before you in the way, 
to seek you out a place to pitch your tents in " ; 
and the stations for our tents are fixed all the way 
until travelling days are done. 

III. The Divine Anticipation of our Spirit- 
ual Need affords another proof of the prescient 
element of the world. When the morning stars 
sang for joy over the new-made and radiant world, 
they could never have guessed that it was destined 
to become the stage of tragedy. They would only 
have prophesied for it golden ages of glory and 
joy. The event, however, has proved far other- 
wise. The rosy dawn was followed by a long sad 
day; let us rather say, by a long dark night. 
Yet here again God went before the race in the 
provision of His mercy. 

Truly wonderful are the foregleams of redemp- 
tion darting out of the depths of past eternity! 
Our Lord recognizes in Himself the " Ancient of 
Days," and views His work in the light of 
eternity. " Father, those whom Thou hast given 
Me, I will that, where I am, they also may be 
with Me ; that they may behold My glory, which 
Thou hast given Me : for Thou lovedst Me before 
the foundation of the world." Where our Lord 



THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 119 

certainly means that the eternal Father loved the 
redeeming Son ; loved Him in the light of His 
atoning life and death. St. Peter perceives the 
everlasting purpose. He with whose precious 
blood we were redeemed " was foreknown indeed 
before the foundation of the world." The writer 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews signifies that the 
salvation of mankind was planned and committed 
to the Son from the beginning: "although the 
works were finished from the foundation of the 
world." Very fully does St. Paul bring out this 
sublime truth in his Epistle to the Ephesians. 
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 
"chose us in Him before the foundation of the 
world." And the Apocalypse celebrates "the 
Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of 
the world." It is recorded of a great modern 
engineer that he was prepared at a moment's 
notice to deal with any emergency that might 
arise in the carrying out of his gigantic under- 
takings ; whilst all the rest were panic-stricken, he 
knew at once how to meet the catastrophe ; it 
seemed as though he had thought out the whole 
situation before it arose. To illustrate the great 
by the small, how clear it is that from the genesis 
of things Almighty Love foresaw and provided 
against that element of evil which began so early 
to work our woe ! 

In the earliest page of history the idea of re- 
demption began to assert and define itself. The 
passion-flower grew in paradise. The funda- 



120 THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 

mental thought of Israel was the knowledge of the 
true Deliverer. And as the world awoke to the 
consciousness of sin, it concurrently awoke to the 
knowledge of a provided salvation. As the race 
became alive to its peril, it found the fire-escape 
built into the very fabric of things. As the storm 
of wrath broke forth against unrighteousness, the 
ark of salvation was disclosed in the midst of the 
deluge. No sooner did the deadly virus work in 
our veins, than the plant of healing sprang by our 
side. As the angry angels slammed upon us the 
gate of Eden, another door opened, a veritable 
gate Beautiful, into a fairer paradise. The world 
has never been left without some sense of heavenly 
sympathy, divine help, and ultimate salvation. 
God went before the race in a pillar of cloud ; yes, 
in the darkest yet divinest cloud of redemption : 
He has led the procession of the ages with the 
pillar of the cross. 

Thus, too, our individual spiritual life is antici- 
pated. We believe in prevenient grace, in the 
grace that antedates all experience ; and this 
doctrine needs just now to be specially affirmed. 
The popular notion at the moment is that the ape 
and tiger have secured the initiative, and that we 
thus begin life at a moral disadvantage. Our in- 
ferior instincts and passions having secured pos- 
session, life is prejudiced from its very beginning. 
This is not, however, the teaching of revelation. 
" Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did 
my mother conceive me." Such a representation 



THE PKOPHETIC ELEMENT 121 

would seem to sanction the popular view ; but an- 
other passage from the greatest of the psalms 
places the divine knowledge and action at the 
very fountain of being. " For Thou hast formed my 
reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother's 
womb. . . . My frame was not hidden from 
Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine 
eyes did see mine imperfect substance, and in Thy 
book were all my members written, which day by 
day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of 
them." Here the psalmist is not writing as a 
physiologist or a poet, but specially from the re- 
ligious standpoint, recognizing the action and 
purpose of the righteous God in the very genesis 
of our being. The principle of lawlessness works 
in us from our birth ; yet the fundamental and 
primordial structure and inclination are divine. 
The forming Hand gave to the fresh creation a 
secret bias to truth, beauty, and goodness. Ex- 
perience confirms this. We no sooner reach con- 
sciousness than we awake to the claims of 
righteousness. We may "go astray from the 
womb speaking lies "; we know, however, that 
they are lies, and that we ought not, and need 
not, either to speak or do them. Conscience was 
the first faculty of the marvellous organization ; 
the thoughts of God were interwoven with all its 
embroidery ; divine grace attended the first stir- 
rings of the soul. 

All the scenes and experiences of life are ante- 



122 THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 

dated by grace. Nature is full of prevision. 
" Spring hides behind autumn's mask " ; and as 
Richard Jefleries puts it, " The butterflies of next 
summer are somewhere under the snow." The 
future dominates all nature, and the observer 
marks prophetic signs in every living thing. We 
have seen that the same is true in the evolution 
of society ; the general life of to-day being deter- 
mined by considerations transcending the present. 
And we feel sure that in the education and disci- 
pline of His children the future is a factor never 
lost sight of by the heavenly Father. " Light is 
sown for the righteous, and gladness for the up- 
right in heart." Grace comes before duty. " We 
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for 
good works, which God afore prepared that we 
should walk in them." We are created for the 
works, and the works are created for us. With 
the call of duty comes that secret strengthening 
which renders us efficient when the moment for 
execution arrives. Grace comes before tempta- 
tion. " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail 
not." The Advocate anticipates the crisis, fore- 
warns and forearms His tempted ones. 

Shut my heart up like a flower 
At temptation's darksome hour. 

We are heard in that we fear, and are strangely 
fortified against assault. Grace comes before trib- 
ulation. Just as the tree, in anticipation of win- 
ter's extreme cold, provides protective bracts for 



THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 123 

the delicate leaves of the next summer ; or as birds 
and butterflies are prompted, by mysterious influ- 
ences, to shelter themselves against the approach- 
ing tempest : so souls destined to great trial are 
secretly informed and strengthened that they may 
meet the ordeal without amazement. " Thou hast 
beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand 
upon me." 

IV. That Christ has gone before us into 
the Heavenly Place shall furnish our final 
illustration. " A cloud received Him out of their 
sight." As in a cloud the Creator went before us, 
fashioning this world for our indwelling, so in the 
cloud of the Ascension has the Redeemer gone 
before us to make ready a new sphere of beauty 
and delight. " I go to prepare a place for you," 
was His solemn assurance in the parting hour — 
an assurance that He is fulfilling every day for 
thousands of His people. "For Christ entered 
not into a holy place made with hands, like a pat- 
tern to the true ; but into heaven itself, now to ap- 
pear before the face of God for us." As in the 
ancient time He prepared Palestine for Israel, so 
now He prepares the sphere of glory for the 
saints, and makes the saints meet for their inherit- 
ance in light. 

And why should we hesitate to believe in this 
promised world and its immortality ? Is not the 
problem of a future world and of our lot in it sub- 
stantially solved by the fact that we are here in 
possession of this? If the creative Spirit could 



124: THE PROPHETIC ELEMENT 

call us out of absolute nothingness, and make us 
all that we are here and now, why should we 
question His power to call us out of this sphere of 
incompleteness into a higher realm? The first 
act was surely infinitely the more difficult. See- 
ing that we awoke within the dust, that we have 
burst through the clods, that we have struggled 
half-way up the stalk towards perfection, why 
should we not shoot the other half and to-morrow 
break into flower ? We shall ! I know it, am 
sure of it I " Which hope we have as an anchor 
of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and 
entering into that which is within the veil ; whither 
as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having be- 
come a high priest forever after the order of 
Melchizedek." " Forerunner " ! Beautiful title, 
mighty significance ! We have no reason to be 
afraid of the future of this life ; nor of the mystery 
of death ; nor of the darkness of worlds unknown. 
" For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by 
flight ; for the Lord will go before you ; and the 
God of Israel shall be your rereward." He heads 
the procession ; He closes it; He is round about it 
on every side. 

Where our banner leads us, 

We may safely go ; 
Where our Chief precedes us, 

We may face the foe. 
His right arm is o'er us ; 

He our Guide will be. 
Christ hath gone before us ; 

Christians, follow ye ! 



VIII 
THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins ; let them 
not have dominion over me : then shall I be perfect, and I shall be 
clear from great transgression, — Ps. xix. 13. 

THE world in which we find ourselves is 
necessarily a world of danger — of nat- 
ural and moral danger. Physically we 
stand in jeopardy every hour. This fact is ac- 
cepted by some as a proof of the defectiveness of 
things in general, and they find it difficult to be- 
lieve that the world was created by divine wisdom 
or that it is superintended by that wisdom. Cer- 
tain mechanism is sometimes described as being 
" fool proof " ; that is, the machine is so constructed 
that the most stupid operator cannot readily mar 
it nor very well injure himself. We have critics 
who think that this world ought to have been 
"fool proof " ; that it ought not to have been easy 
to hurt ourselves : we ought to have water that 
would not drown, fire that would not burn, gases 
that would not explode. We do not know what 
are the possibilities of creation; but if a "fool 
proof " world were possible, we can readily see what 
the intellectual calibre of its tenants would be. 
Through the fact and imminence of danger our 

125 



126 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

faculties are disciplined, and thus we have attained 
strength and acuteness of body and mind. This is 
equally applicable to our higher life and its devel- 
opment. Were it impossible for us to go wrong, 
we should not be men at all. The constitution of 
things does not tempt us to do wrong, nature is 
pervaded by benign safeguards ; yet the possibil- 
ity of transgression and penalty is the condition 
of our greatness and its perfecting. The world 
was not designed as an asylum for amiable stu- 
pidity, but as the training-ground of the thought- 
ful, the wise, the humble, the obedient ; and such 
are educated into perfection through difficulty and 
danger. 

Yet we are careful to distinguish between the 
serene courage which best deals with danger and 
the foolhardiness which courts disaster. The col- 
lier descending underground with his safety-lamp 
has our sympathy whilst he walks warily ; but 
when he forces his lamp to light his pipe, we only 
despise and condemn. The line of demarcation 
between wise conduct in the presence of danger, 
and recklessness, is generally clear. Sensible men 
cherish the habit of awareness ; they watch over 
their health and safety, make the margin between 
themselves and loss as wide as possible, keep well 
within the lines chalked out by experience, and 
risk nothing without adequate cause. On the con- 
trary, the foolish presume on their cleverness ; 
they confide in luck, graze the rock, swim the river 
just above the falls, their supreme piquant enter 



THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 127 

tainment being " a narrow shave." We see exam- 
ples of both types alike in daily and in moral 
life. 

Our purpose, then, is to point out that life does 
not admit of negligence, self-confidence, and ven- 
turesomeness ; and to urge upon you a close and 
constant supervision of the soul. 

I. To TREAT NEGLIGENTLY OUR SECRET 

Faults is to become guilty of presumptuous sin. 
Immediately before our text we listen to the depre- 
cation and appeal, " Who can discern His errors ? 
Clear Thou me from hidden faults." Now, by 
these errors and secret faults we understand the 
psalmist to indicate the thought, feeling, and bias 
which lie back of action, and eventually determine 
action. In the meditation of the heart, the cham- 
bers of the brain, the inclination of the will, action 
takes its rise and colour ; and at this initial point, 
in the count of the sacred writer, we ought spe- 
cially to be on our guard. Out of the heart are 
the issues of life ; and this fountain ought to be 
kept under constant observation, as the inhabit- 
ants of volcanic areas watch the movements and 
colour of the water in the wells. According to the 
reasoning of the text and context, out of hidden 
faults spring presumptuous sins, out of presump- 
tuous sins dominant sins, out of dominant sins the 
great transgression of final apostasy. Medical 
authority teaches that elephantiasis is sometimes 
occasioned by the bite of a mosquito ; and the 
student of morals well knows that as the most 



128 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

monstrous physical maladies arise in microscopic 
life, so the foulest sins originate in obscure errors 
of the mind, in distempered imaginations, in mor- 
bid feeling, in a bias of the will so faint as easily 
to escape notice. As St. James diagnoses the sit- 
uation, each man is tempted when drawn away 
by his irregular desire, and enticed ; then, the ir- 
regular desire having conceived, beareth sin ; and 
sin, becoming full grown, brings forth death. The 
point of the psalmist, then, is this — that so soon as 
we discern in thought, emotion, or conduct any- 
thing irregular, false, unhealthy, we ought promptly 
to take ourselves to task. 

Yet how lightly we treat these beginnings of 
evil in our mental and emotional life ! Crimson 
crimes are of such stuff as dreams are made of ; 
but such dreams are disregarded as being no more 
serious than the dreams of the night. We count 
them of little consequence ; unconcernedly we pass 
over the morbid symptoms of sensation, reflection, 
and feeling ; we dismiss them as a negligible 
quantity. How differently do we act in relation 
to physical signs of unhealthiness, although those 
signs are of the faintest ! Then we are, indeed, 
quick to discern and prompt to act. Slight Ail- 
ments is the title of a work by a distinguished 
physician. Its design is to describe the symp- 
toms of incipient maladies, to show how serious 
ailments arise out of slight ones, and to direct the 
treatment that these ominous signs demand. It 
is unnecessary to say that this work is popular ; 



THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 129 

that it has gone through many editions. If we 
have the slightest reason to suspect ourselves of 
being unsound, if we discover any tendency in our 
constitution towards one or another malady, we 
at once take the matter in hand, whatever may 
be the cost or inconvenience. " Despise no new 
accident to your body, but take opinion of it," 
writes Lord Bacon. How readily we accept his 
advice ! We do not delay until the disturbing 
symptoms give place to decided maladies like 
cancer or consumption. We are admonished by 
the novel weakness, the unusual pain, the nebu- 
lous sign, and satisfy ourselves as to what the 
"accident" signifies, and how it may best be dealt 
with. Did we not act thus, we should before 
long bitterly reflect upon ourselves. Ought we 
not to follow the same course touching the ap- 
pearance of sinister signs in our spiritual and 
moral life ? to note any new accident of the soul, 
and ask opinion of it ? 

What do these unwonted motions of pride 
mean? what this unusual strength and clamour- 
ing of appetite, these surprises of petulance and 
temper — what do they imply ? What is the sig- 
nificance of my growing restlessness, impatience, 
and discontent ? What does this constant gravi- 
tation of my heart towards earthly treasure pre- 
sage ? How is this failure of interest in sacred 
things to be explained ? this weariness in well- 
doing ? Am I conscious of a dullness of the in- 
ward hearing, a dimness of interior vision, a loss 



130 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

of spiritual appetite ? and if so, what account can 
I give myself of these serious phases of experi- 
ence ? Whence come these moods of unbelief, 
these motions of jealousy and envy, this more 
obtrusive self-will, this chilled enthusiasm, this 
growing habit of hesitation and stumbling ? The 
soul may be ''off colour," as the body is; and 
surely we ought to mark the first tokens of moral 
and spiritual degeneration, to ascertain of what 
they are symptomatic, and to submit them to the 
eye of the great Physician who healeth all our 
diseases. Let us emulate the delicate conscien- 
tiousness of the psalmist, ever watching and regu- 
lating the springs of conduct. Let his prayer 
continually be on our lips : " Let the words of 
my mouth and the meditation of my heart be 
acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Rock and 
my Redeemer." 

II. To Despise the Beginnings of Habit 
is to become chargeable with presumptuous sin. 
The psalmist has here in view the terrible power 
of evil habit. " Let them not have dominion over 
me." St. Paul refers to the same hateful domi- 
nation : " Let not sin therefore reign in your mor- 
tal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof." 
The ancients were only too familiar with tyranny, 
with its humiliations and cruelty ; but they knew 
no despotism that was so terrible as that of a soul 
mastered by base desire : the tyranny that out- 
rages reason, puts out the eyes of the heart, 
silences the conscience, fastens fetters on the will, 



THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 131 

and thrusts human nature in its inmost self into 
the bitterest bondage and degradation. To ac- 
quiesce in the lordship of lust, or to attempt in 
unavailing revolt to break its fetters, is the deep- 
est depth of subjection and misery we may know. 
Of all the bitter cries that go up to heaven, no 
cry of anguish is more intense than that of the 
moral slave dominated by passions and habits 
which hold him in an iron grip. Appetite, pride, 
covetousness, selfishness, temper, dominating the 
man, making sport of his good resolutions, deny- 
ing his better judgment and instincts, and coer- 
cing him to be and do what in his heart of hearts 
he utterly abhors : is there anything sadder than 
this ? Yes, one thing ; and that is the same slave 
so utterly subdued that he cries out no longer 
against the vile passions which degrade and des- 
troy, but acquiesces in their thralldom helplessly, 
hopelessly. 

The argument of the psalmist is to put us on 
our guard against this monstrous tyranny. He 
warns us to be watchful at the point where thought 
and sentiment first seek to establish themselves in 
action. We are not to tamper with the tyrant, lest 
in the end he captures and enslaves us. Our first 
dalliances with evil may be of trifling aspect, but 
we are guilty of criminal imprudence to tamper 
with it at all. And is not the psalmist right in 
seeking to guard us against the first faint deeds 
of evil ? We can never overrate the immense sig- 
nificance of the first words and acts leading on to 



132 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

habit. In physics we see that the lightest crease 
or scratch has marvellous determining value. A 
tear in paper accurately follows the line of the 
directive crease ; the crease may be faint in the 
extreme, but the rent will commence there and 
follow the line of indentation. If a groove is filed 
on the surface of a sheet of glass, the slightest jar 
will divide it, and divide it at the groove although 
it is only a scratch. The first trifling acts in hu- 
man life possess similar significance ; they exer- 
cise an influence upon the future altogether beyond 
their immediate importance. 

The effect of a deed, of a deed repeated a few 
times, is immense and often final. It does much 
to settle the lines on which after-thought finds it 
easy to follow ; it ploughs the channel in which 
henceforth emotion naturally flows. The physiolo- 
gist is aware how first movements affect the par- 
ticles, tissues, and nerves of the body, establishing 
tendency. The psychologist knows that initial 
acts impart a bent to the powers and passions of 
our mental and emotional nature. And the 
moralist emphasizes the dominant influence of 
early action on will, conscience, and character. 
As Amiel states it : " Almost everything comes 
from almost nothing, one might think. It is only 
the first crystallization which is the affair of mind ; 
the ultimate aggregation is the affair of mass, of 
attraction, of acquired momentum, of mechanical 
acceleration.' ' The cherished thought of evil, its 
first articulation, its earliest manifestation in 



THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 133 

irregular action, in a wonderful degree prepare 
the way for extreme transgression. The most 
considerable step that we take in any journey is 
the step over the threshold. 

Let us not be guilty of presumptuous sin in 
yielding to the temerity which trifles with the be- 
ginnings of evil. The crease may be barely dis- 
cernible, but there character will be rent ; the 
scratch may be inappreciable, but here the soul 
will be shattered, and, perchance, cast with the 
rubbish to the void ! Snap, then, the spider- 
thread ere it become a cord of vanity, a cart-rope 
to drag the tyrant's chariot and the executioner's 
tumbril. Block the track ere the lawless thought 
establish a right of way. Quench the kindling 
spark ere you perish in the impure flame of an in- 
fernal martyrdom. " Stand in awe, and sin not : 
commune with your own heart upon your bed, 
and be still." 

III. To Expose Ourselves Unnecessarily 
to Temptation is an egregious form of pre- 
sumption. We have already spoken of those 
wanton persons who are never happy except 
when courting danger in some shape or other; 
and this folly finds its parallel in the spiritual life. 
Surely temptation enough arises out of natural, 
legitimate life, inevitable dangers stand thick 
through all the ground ; and yet we madly multi- 
ply peril to the soul, as the hare-brained will 
graze the grave. How rashly we expose ourselves 
to sceptical influences ! How heedlessly we take 



134 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

on worldly entanglements ! How apt we are to 
minimize the perils of passion, feeding without 
fear! 

And nothing is to be gained by this temerity. 
In ordinary life, when men run serious risks, 
something of consequence stands to be won. 
Whenever one goes forth with a shroud under his 
arm to attempt any enterprise, he has, as a rule, 
an adequate prize in view, or at least thinks that 
he has. Alfred Nobel, the famous inventor of ex- 
plosives, lived for years dealing with the most 
dangerous substances and making experiments 
fraught with peril. He was ever handling terrible 
compounds like nitro-glycerine, gunpowder, dyna- 
mite, blasting glycerine, gun-cotton, blasting gela- 
tine, cordite, and any hour might have been blown 
to atoms. He habitually faced death in its most 
terrible forms. But this hazardous life was re- 
deemed by a great purpose. The brave experi- 
mentalist sought to solve important problems, and 
to equip the engineer with forces that might the 
sooner establish the pathway of civilization. He 
who in a dare-devil spirit sports with gunpowder, 
cordite, or dynamite is a fool. 

To dabble with any forbidden thing in the 
moral life is inexcusable folly ; for it does not, and 
it cannot, bring any advantage whatever. The 
wounds received in the service of sin carry no 
honour ; the ventures made at the bidding of 
vicious caprice yield no profit ; the forbidden 
precipices we climb with bleeding feet only render 



THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 135 

our folly the more conspicuous and our punish- 
ment the more complete. " What fruit then had 
ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now 
ashamed ? for the end of those things is death." 
What fools we are ! How incurable is our folly ! 
Shall we never learn that there is nothing worth 
having beyond the hedge ? Everything good for 
the body ; everything in nature, art, science, 
literature, adventure, that gives intellectual enter- 
tainment and delight ; whatever society bestows 
of love and joy ; the world, genius, life, the afflu- 
ence of the present, the splendour of hope, all are 
ours within the lines of reason and righteousness ; 
yet in very wantonness we break bounds and 
trespass on ground where we stand to lose every- 
thing ! To put our great life into pawn at the 
bidding of arrogant recklessness is the supreme 
infatuation. 

" Moreover by them is Thy servant warned " ; 
and what is needed is simply teachableness, 
dutifulness. It is not so much that we require 
sublime wisdom to preserve us, measures of heroic 
strength, or mystical endowments of any kind ; 
we need in moral life, to a very large extent, only 
to exercise the good sense we display in dealing 
with the common dangers of daily life. This is 
certainly the view of St. Paul. " Look therefore 
carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise. 
. . . Wherefore be ye not foolish, but under- 
stand what the will of the Lord is" (Eph. v. 15, 17). 
Do not become foolish, mindless, witless, as re- 



136 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

gards the difficulties and pitfalls of life ; use com- 
mon sense, sanctified common sense. In the 
public parks we are warned, "Keep off the 
grass " ; in the museums, " Do not touch " ; in 
the Zoological Gardens, " Do not tease the ani- 
mals." In America, at the entrance to various 
buildings, you are admonished, " Keep out." It 
requires no scholarship, philosophy, or mysticism 
to understand these curt instructions ; our duty is 
so clear that a child can understand, and a fool 
need not err. But the instructions of God's Word 
are just as explicit ; and all that we need is im- 
plicitly to obey them, not as fools, but as wise. 
If a place is doubtful, keep out ; if a book is 
tainted, let it alone ; if a path leads astray, turn 
from it, and pass away ; and if you are in doubt 
as to the legitimacy and safety of any suggested 
course, give yourself the benefit of the doubt and 
refrain. Knowing that all precious things are 
ours in knowledge, virtue, and godliness, and 
knowing what the will of the Lord is, let us 
walk circumspectly, sensibly, and we shall walk 
surely. 

IV. To Encounter the Inevitable Perils 
of Life without due Preparation is a sin 
of presumption. Nothing in nature is more re- 
markable than the way in which the creatures are 
fortified against their enemies ; and it is noted 
that their defensive armour becomes more ex- 
quisite and complete as their assailants increase 
in power and efficiency. Cacti are preserved by 



THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 137 

formidable spines. Protective mechanics of a 
most complicated order are found in a number of 
plants. All kinds of ingenious weapons are de- 
veloped by flower, insect, and animal ; just the 
armour that best suits them, being finely adjusted 
to the severity of their environment. Thus God 
has not left His people without a " whole 
armour" ; it would be strangely unlike Him if He 
had. And that armour is found in the intensity 
and fullness of their spiritual life. The armour of 
the saint is not something exterior and artificial : 
it is the protection that springs from the reality, 
intensity, and healthiness of the life of the soul. 
It is in the grasp of the truth by the understand- 
ing, in the sensibility of the conscience to right- 
eousness, in the warmth of the heart's love, in the 
clearness of the vision of the eternal, in the 
strength of our trust in God, and in the complete- 
ness of our consecration to Him. Here is the in- 
vulnerable panoply of the saints. 

It is exactly here, too, that we are often charge- 
able with presumption. We neglect, we let down, 
the vigour of the soul ; and in so doing venture 
into a dangerous world without due equipment. 
With sandals, sword, helmet, belt, or breastplate 
missing, we venture into the midst of wily and 
truculent foes. With unpardonable levity we 
allow ourselves to become weak and defenseless, 
although we stand in jeopardy every hour. If 
the cactus in the desert starved its spines, it would 
perish by browsing beast. If the wild rose dared 



138 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

for a season to bloom without its thorns, cattle 
would make short work of it. If bird or butterfly 
wantonly omitted its protective colour, it would 
furnish a feast to its foe. If the creeping thing of 
the sea ventured forth into the abyss without its 
shell, it would inevitably perish. Yet we court 
disaster by permitting degeneration in the armour 
of the soul. By default of thought, prayer, vigi- 
lance, discipline, we put ourselves in infinite peril. 
Let us, then, continually saturate our mind with 
the light and power of God's holy law, and ever 
be ready to draw upon our enemies the sword of 
the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Let our 
loins be belted with truth ; let the corselet of right- 
eousness be daily burnished ; our feet shod with 
preparedness. Let us afresh each morning re- 
ceive from God's hands the helmet of salvation. 
Over all, let us buckle upon ourselves the shield 
of faith, which quenches every fiery arrow. With 
all prayer and supplication complete the magical 
panoply. To sally forth upon the field of strife 
with heedlessness, with a cold heart, weak faith, 
and vacillating purpose, is to invite calamity. 
We are immune just as we live in the spirit of 
watchfulness, consecration, enthusiasm, in the 
power of purity and love. 

Thus living, however, we are immune, and may 
live in absolute confidence and serenity. Dangers 
stand thick through all the ground, yet is the sin- 
cere soul safe as though in heaven itself. The 
wife of the celebrated physician, Sir William 



THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 139 

Priestley, was a strenuous advocate of the theories 
of Pasteur, and in her book entitled The Story of a 
Lifetime she describes a dinner given at her house 
to enable Mr. Chamberlain to meet some of Pas- 
teur's disciples and to become acquainted with his 
methods. " On entering the drawing-room after 
dinner, Mr. Chamberlain had the felicity of finding 
himself, for the first time in his life, in a veritable 
museum of living disease. On every side were 
glass tubes, with nothing between himself and a 
variety of contagious diseases but cotton-wool 
stoppers. Standing in the presence of this awe- 
inspiring world, Chamberlain was not afraid.'' 
No, these gentlemen were not afraid ; they gaily 
talked and laughed, although meeting in a verita- 
ble museum of horrors, amid tubes containing 
flourishing families of disease, plates smeared with 
gelatine containing microbes of various kinds, and 
microscopes through which could be seen the 
bacilli when taken fresh from the blood of disease- 
stricken men or animals. Only a frail particle of 
cotton-wool separated them from the ghastliest 
plagues ; yet it was enough. This narrative is a 
parable of our moral situation and peril. The 
world in which perforce we dwell and act is a 
museum of living disease ; everything is infested 
with contagion ; we are threatened by a thousand 
deaths : yet are we perfectly secure. The ethereal 
defenses by which God renders His sincere chil- 
dren immune are sufficient. We may live in per- 
fect confidence and peace, enjoying without a dis- 



140 THE SIN OF SELF-CONFIDENCE 

turbing thought all the pleasant things life has to 
give. The God of our salvation can seal " the pit 
of the abyss " with an electron, render a bubble a 
fortress, hedge us in with a gossamer ; or, to drop 
the imagery, the altogether invisible and intangi- 
ble action of divine grace will secure the absolute 
safety of all who are pure in heart, even though 
Pandemonium seethe around them. " Surely He 
shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and 
from the noisome pestilence. Thou shalt not be 
afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow 
that flieth by day ; nor for the pestilence that walk- 
eth in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth 
at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and 
ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it shall not 
come nigh thee. There shall no evil befall thee, 
neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." 



IX 

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE 
RESURRECTION 

He preached Jesus and the resurrection. — Acts xvii. 1 8. 

THE Athenians were evidently not very- 
clear as to the distinction existing between 
the person of Christ and the doctrine of 
the Resurrection. They seem to have confused 
the resurrection with the foreign divinities whom 
they charged Paul with setting forth ; they appear 
to have thought the resurrection a distinct entity, 
one of the foreign demons. But the fact of their 
thus describing the ministry of the apostle shows 
what a prominent place the doctrine of the Resur- 
rection occupied in that ministry; ' 'Jesus" was 
evidently a conspicuous theme in his preaching, 
and " the resurrection of the dead " was not less a 
salient feature. The two subjects went together 
in the grand apostolic message. And they go to- 
gether in the Epistles. The fact and import of the 
resurrection of Christ, and of the resurrection of 
His people in Him, are interwoven with all the 
writings of the apostles, as they were evidently in- 
terwoven with all their preaching. First, then, the 
resurrection of our Lord was to the apostles a 
great, fundamental, essential fact. They know 

141 



142 THE IMPLICATIONS 

nothing of the resurrection as a myth, to be treated 
poetically ; it is an assured and glorious historic 
fact, on the truth of which they were prepared to 
stake everything for time and eternity. 

The fact of Christ's resurrection being thus un- 
derstood as actual and literal, let us ask, then, what 
are the great truths it implies and symbolizes ? 
When we speak of the resurrection of our Lord, 
what are its vital significations ? The obvious re- 
ply to this is, it demonstrates the essential great- 
ness of human nature, despite its deepest humilia- 
tion ; it is the symbol of immortality, the condition 
of our justification and sanctification, and the prom- 
ise and pledge of our individual resurrection and 
glorification. The resurrection of Jesus Christ has 
thrown a splendid light on human nature, and 
given us a new sense of self-respect : by depriving 
death of its sting and the grave of its victory, it 
has delivered us from the paralyzing power of fear ; 
it has vivified all human thought and life by a 
mighty hope which shall not make us ashamed. 

The resurrection of our Lord, thus recognized as 
historic fact, has demonstrated its power in some 
other resurrections, of several of which we now 
wish to speak. These other resurrections are 
mighty witnesses to the fact and glory of the 
primal historic resurrection. 

I. First, then, mark the power of Christ's res- 
urrection in the Sphere of Truth. We are 
accustomed to speak of truth as though it were 
always necessarily a living thing, incapable of in- 



OF THE RESURRECTION 143 

ertia and frustration. We deceive ourselves on 
this matter with quite a number of aphorisms. 
"Truth is mighty, and it will prevail," is one of 
these maxims from which we derive great conso- 
lation. As though truth were always invincible, 
aggressive, realizing, prevailing ! Yet what is 
clearer than the fact that truths, and the very 
greatest truths, remain for ages utterly impotent 
and unavailing ? They are moribund, they do not 
live and make live, they are mere mummies in the 
necropolis of dusty libraries ; the antiquary occa- 
sionally gets a glimpse of them as they sleep in 
their painted shrouds and gilded caskets, but they 
exhibit no longer the mystery and majesty of 
living things ; they are occasionally recalled in the 
memory of successive generations ; their ghosts 
flit through the imagination of men, they are 
formally acknowledged and reverenced, but they 
do not interest, inspire, restrain, actuate, com- 
mand, and compel. Now, in this sphere of inani- 
mate truth the power of Christ's resurrection is 
marvellously displayed. 

Mark its revivifying action upon Judaism. Com- 
pared with the religions of the surrounding na- 
tions, the faith of the Jew was preeminent; its 
revelation of the righteous God, its insistence on 
the principle of holiness, its foreshadowing of im- 
mortality, invested it with unique authority and 
glory. Yet in course of time it " waxed old," it 
became ineffective and obstructive, it cumbered 
the ground, and the torch of Titus cremated it. 



1U THE IMPLICATIONS 

But in the resurrection of Jesus Christ Judaism 
arose from its ashes in transfiguration splendour. 
Its sacred literature palpitated with a strange 
power; from being a petrifaction, its temple be- 
came a living Church ; its laws were vivified by 
the law of the spirit of life ; from the insignificance 
of a provincial cult, it passed into supreme and 
universal authority and influence. " The first 
Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam 
was made a quickening spirit." 

A while ago, in one of the newspapers, there 
was a discussion entitled, " Do we Believe?" Dr. 
Hermann Gollancz, a distinguished Jewish au- 
thority, complained that the Bishop of London 
imputed the civilizing influence which had been 
felt in the world through past ages to the action 
of Christian truth. The rabbi contended that the 
claim of Hebraism was supreme, and that Judaism 
should be substituted for Christianity, the Bible 
for the Gospel. Yet, surely, history is altogether 
on the side of the bishop. The civilization of to- 
day has certainly not arisen from the action of the 
Old Testament, or from any influence exerted by 
the Hebrew nation. It was only in the ministry 
of the apostles who " proclaimed in Jesus the res- 
urrection from the dead," that Judaism became a 
missionary power, a converting and civilizing 
power; only at Pentecost was it clothed upon 
from above, becoming a lifting and driving 
power, the power of God unto salvation. "The 
outgrown shell was left by life's unresting sea," 



OF THE RESURRECTION 145 

and we entered " a new temple, nobler than the 
last," one filled with an excelling glory. Judaism 
spiritualized, energized, glorified in Christ Jesus, 
became the supreme factor in the moral life of 
mankind. He who is the Resurrection and the 
Life, called it forth from its temple tomb and 
winding-sheet of formalism to world-conquering 
power. " It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in 
incorruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised 
in glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is raised in 
power : it is sown a natural body ; it is raised a 
spiritual body." 

Once more. Only as the gospel of the Resur- 
rection is preached in heathen lands will the vari- 
ous faiths of the pagan pass into fulfillment. The 
students of comparative religion remind us of the 
divine doctrine found in the ethnic scriptures ; 
they abundantly prove that these scriptures con- 
tain many great truths expressed with remarkable 
lucidity and beauty. But those best acquainted 
with the East declare that these ancient faiths no 
longer serve the nations which hold them ; they 
are practically dead so far as concerns any in- 
fluence they might once have exerted upon the 
moral and spiritual life of the people. It is, then, 
only as the truths implied in the resurrection of 
Christ are proclaimed that these incomplete and 
inoperative faiths will reach their consummation. 
It was by this thought that St. Paul was guided 
in dealing with the Athenians. He recognized 
the merit and failure of their natural theology, 



146 THE IMPLICATIONS 

and " preached Jesus and the resurrection " as the 
fullness of the truth after which they were stri- 
ving. So will it be with the present moribund 
faiths of the Oriental nations : they will find their 
consummation in becoming related to the gospel 
of the Resurrection. Only as the Christian mis- 
sionary tells of the love of God who gave His Son 
to die for our sins, of His rising from the grave 
for our justification ; of the power of the ascended 
Lord to raise us from the death of sin to the life 
of righteousness ; of the eternal blessedness which 
awaits the believer through union with Him who 
is the Resurrection and the Life — only as these 
truths are told out with conviction and love will 
the creeds of Paganism awake to a higher life 
and efficacy. Whatever in them is false will be 
purged ; whatever is true will be energized ; what- 
ever is partial will be completed. Christ " came 
not to destroy, but to fulfill " ; and as He raised 
Judaism into a spiritual and heavenly glory, so 
will He swallow up the great native faiths of 
Paganism in an excelling glory of truth and grace. 
The splendid change that passed over the faith of 
the Jew will pass over the faith of the Parsee, the 
Buddhist, the Confucian, the Mohammedan ! The 
Lord Jesus " shall fashion anew the body of their 
humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body 
of His glory, according to the working whereby He 
is able even to subject all things unto Himself." 

Again, many truths held by our scientists, 
statesmen, philosophers, and social reformers as- 



OF THE RESURRECTION 147 

sert themselves feebly, if they assert themselves at 
all. They are called by Lord Bacon " bedridden 
truths " ; but they are even worse than that : they 
lie frigid and passive in shrouds, coffins, and cata- 
combs ; if not forgotten as dead men, they move 
society no more than do the dead. What will 
give them life? The enforcement and reception 
of the doctrines symbolized by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ. If the great truths latent in Pagan- 
ism, discussed by philosophy, illustrated by science, 
inculcated by sociology and legislation, are to be- 
come authoritative and fruitful, they will have to 
be related to God, rooted in the eternal righteous- 
ness, energized by divine grace, vivified by the 
hope of immortality. All the truths which concern 
human character and society are reborn in the 
quickened consciousness of God, in the sympa- 
thetic knowledge of Christ's love and power, and 
in the assured faith of eternal life. Truths that 
have hitherto been mere notions revolving idly in 
the imagination become ideals, convictions, en- 
thusiasms, working out in practical life their 
blessed consequences. In a real sense these 
resuscitated verities declare with the Master, " I 
am the Living One ; and I was dead, and behold, 
I am alive forevermore." They are no longer 
bedridden, tenants of the charnel-house, bound 
with grave-clothes ; their eyes are as flames of 
fire, their feet like fine brass burning in a furnace, 
their voice majestic as the sound of many seas. 
So much truth is paralyzed and powerless because 



148 THE IMPLICATIONS 

it has been divorced from the love, righteousness, 
and promise of the living God ; and it is only as 
the risen Christ relates it once more to God and 
eternity, and baptizes it with fire, that it lives, 
flashes, kindles, coerces, consumes, and trans- 
figures. 

II. Consider the power of Christ's resurrection 
as demonstrated in the Sphere of Righteous- 
ness. The great design of the Advent was to 
establish among us a divine righteousness ; and 
the distinct teaching of the New Testament is, 
that in Christ's death lies the destruction of sin, 
and in His resurrection the power of holiness. 
Everywhere in the New Testament the Resurrec- 
tion enforces the claims of righteousness. It does 
not address our curiosity as clearing up certain 
intellectual problems which perplex us ; nor does 
it excite the imagination with dramatic splendours, 
as it might so easily have done ; but it appeals 
directly and exclusively to the conscience. It calls 
for righteousness — sincere, essential, living right- 
eousness in spirit and conduct. " We were 
buried therefore with Him through baptism unto 
death ; that like as Christ was raised from the 
dead through the glory of the Father, so we also 
might walk in newness of life." Purity of the 
body, of the life, of the mind, such purity as will 
bear the divine eye, is the obvious implication of 
the Resurrection. 

Speaking of Greece, Renan writes : " Her 
philosophers, while dreaming of the immortality 



OF THE RESURRECTION 149 

of the soul, were tolerant towards the iniquities of 
this world." l How diametrically opposed to the 
method of the apostles ! With them the im- 
mortality of the soul passed from a dream into a 
supreme article of faith ; and they never for a 
moment failed to employ it as a grand moral 
dynamic: they became more than ever intolerant 
towards the iniquities of this world, and in the 
vaster horizon that had opened to them they found 
a splendid inspiration making possible a holiness 
which the faint consolations of Paganism could 
neither prompt nor sustain. Hardly ever, if ever, 
do the apostles refer to the great hope of the 
future, assured in the resurrection of Christ, with- 
out making it an incitement to sanctification. 

Yes, by His resurrection from the dead our 
Lord filled the whole moral sphere with prevailing 
energy. How fatally weak were the moral systems 
of the ancients ! The greatest historians admit 
the emptiness and hypocrisy of the morality of 
Greece and Rome. And our Lord showed con- 
vincingly the defects of the moral teaching and 
conduct of the Pharisees as He subjected them to 
the limelight of His searching criticism. But, 
turning to the New Testament, we are conscious 
that a new moral force has entered into the world. 
By His triumph over sin and death, which all who 
believe in Him are to share ; by revealing the 
love of God, and thus pouring heavenly fire into 
the human heart ; by infinite consolations and en- 

1 History of the People of Israel. 



150 THE IMPLICATIONS 

couragements ; by converting the intimation of 
immortality into a glorious certainty, Jesus Christ 
brought new motives, inspirations, attractions, en- 
thusiasms, into the sphere of human life and duty, 
rendering absolute obedience to the moral law- 
possible and delightful. Captain Scott, in The 
Voyage of the " Discovery" graphically describes 
the beautiful ice flowers which are a feature of the 
Arctic regions. He relates how these flowers of 
the frost stand up clear-cut and perfect in form, 
the mathematical precision of their delicate tracery 
being wonderful, and the more nearly they are ex- 
amined the more astonishing do they appear. 
Nothing in science, we are assured, is more 
poetical than a garden of exquisite ice flowers 
radiant with prismatic colours as they are touched 
by the sun. It cannot, however, be conceded that 
these snow blossoms are alive. A romantic 
scientist hazards the opinion that they are alive ; 
he argues that as ice crystals arrange themselves 
in precisely the same way as the cells of living 
plants do, we must enlarge our definition of living 
matter and reckon these crystallizations as alive. 
It will, however, be long before scientists agree to 
identify electro-magnetic phenomena with life. 
No ; there is a whole universe of difference be- 
tween the mechanically fabricated bloom of the 
frost, and the vital, pulsating, fragrant flower of 
the field. 

But are not these ice flowers of the Arctic seas a 
parable of the moral systems of Jew and Greek, of 



OF THE KESUERECTION 151 

Hindu and Chinese, and of the utilitarian morality 
of our own day? "Clear-cut and perfect in 
form," of " mathematical precision," often touched 
with " the prismatic colours " of imagination and 
emotion, are the maxims and systems of the 
philosophical moralists ; but the mystic element 
called life is missing — despite all their correctness 
and poetry these codes of conduct are rootless, 
sapless, scentless. How different are morals in 
the sphere of which the risen Christ is the central 
light ! Captain Scott records that it was on one 
Easter Sunday that he witnessed the grandest dis- 
play of the ice flowers. " This is a season of 
flowers, and behold ! they have sprung up about 
us as by magic : very beautiful ice flowers, waxen 
white in the shadow, but radiant with prismatic 
colours where the sun-rays light on their delicate 
petals." On Easter Day the Sun of Righteous- 
ness arose on the frosted moral universe, turning 
its ghostly winter flowers into summer flowers — 
pulsating with life, rich in energy, radiant with 
beauty, perfumed with delight, and distilling 
virtue for the healing of the nations. On that 
morning a breath of life, a thrill of power, stirred 
the whole realm of morals, and every law and pre- 
cept of righteousness felt the quickening Spirit. 
The Lord of life brought the strengthening of a 
great assurance, the vitalizing of a mighty hope, 
the inspiration of a burning love, the baptism of a 
heavenly power, and henceforth righteousness 
awoke to a new life of authority and triumph. As 



152 THE IMPLICATIONS 

the resurrection body excels in splendour the car- 
case laid in the dust, so the holiness of the New 
Testament exceeds the righteousness of Stoic, 
Epicurean, and Pharisee. "It is sown in corrup- 
tion ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dis- 
honour ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weak- 
ness ; it is raised in power : it is sown a natural 
body ; it is raised a spiritual body." 

III. The power of Christ's resurrection as dem- 
onstrated in the Sphere of Civilization. 
According to Carlyle, " A nation of degraded men 
cannot be raised up except by what we rightly 
name a miracle." This is the doctrine of Scrip- 
ture. A nation of degraded men can be raised 
only by a miracle, and that miracle is the resur- 
rection of our Lord, which gives to the people a 
new conception of themselves, awakes in them 
lofty hopes, and opens to them new fountains of 
moral strength. The nations will not be saved 
by any number of little political tricks ; nothing 
short of a resurrection suffices for their regenera- 
tion and glorification, and their resurrection be- 
comes an accomplished fact in the power of 
Christ's resurrection. 

Many preachers to-day ignore in their ministry 
the great evangelical facts and doctrines, because 
they think that something practical and immedi- 
ate is wanted. The doctrine of the resurrection of 
Christ is supposed to be far away from the press- 
ing, practical needs of the people ; so they leave 
the unfruitful dogma, and betake themselves to the 



OF THE RESURRECTION 153 

setting forth of economic theories and the discus- 
sion of political policies. In fact, our Lord's res- 
urrection lies at the very root of all social, polit- 
ical, and industrial problems. How strikingly this 
comes out at Pentecost ! " And the multitude of 
them that believed were of one heart and soul ; and 
not one of them said that aught of the things 
which he possessed was his own ; but they had all 
things common. And with great power gave the 
apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord 
Jesus ; and great grace was upon them all. For 
neither was there among them any that lacked ; 
for as many as were possessed of lands or houses 
sold them and brought the prices of the things 
that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet ; 
and distribution was made unto each, according 
as any one had need." How significantly the 
doctrine of the Resurrection stands at the centre 
of this passage ! Has it not a great moral for our 
day ? The vital truths symbolized by the resur- 
rection of our Lord contain the solution of the 
wage question, the land question, and the rest of 
the social and economic questions which shallow 
reformers vainly strive to settle irrespective of the 
spiritual truths which underlie all human society. 
He is the truest reformer who preaches most 
powerfully to the soul, and sets all life in the light 
of the Resurrection. 

Perhaps the most touching sight we ever wit- 
nessed was the crowd of Russian pilgrims at the 
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Those peasants 



154 THE IMPLICATIONS 

travelled thousands of miles and braved untold 
hardships that they might behold the sacred place. 
With intense eagerness, with profoundest rever- 
ence, with tears streaming down their cheeks, 
they sought and kissed the sacred shrine. With 
their poverty and sorrow, bleeding under many 
injustices, aspiring after liberty and privilege, 
they had found their way to the Lord's tomb. 
Their instinct was true. The power to raise a 
nation of trampled and degraded men is in the 
truths symbolized by that sepulchre and in the 
pentecostal power of the risen Lord. That we 
are the sons of God ; that the risen Lord is our 
Elder Brother ; that in His Spirit we find the 
might to subdue the passions by which we are 
degraded ; that in Him we are called to the 
highest righteousness and felicity ; that we, too, 
are the children of the Resurrection — these are 
the doctrines which stir the soul of the nations, 
and which will not permit them to sleep in the 
dust. Let these dynamic beliefs work in a people 
like a leaven, and revolutions and resurrections 
are sure to follow. The vision of Ezekiel, the 
vision of the dry bones, represented primarily the 
resurrection of the Jewish State ; and it represents 
the emancipation, the uplifting, the transfiguring 
of all the nationalities by the breath of the redeem- 
ing God. 

The trumpet of the Gospel proclaiming the 
truth of Easter Sunday is the trumpet of national 
resurrection. The great truths of the empty grave 



OF THE RESURRECTION 155 

are at the bottom of all the restlessness and aspira- 
tion of the people, and that resurrection is now in 
process. The whole world is heaving like a 
churchyard aroused by the last trump. If the 
popular conception of the final resurrection is 
correct, the day of the Lord will prove a great 
and terrible day. Costly coffins will be rent, 
precious marbles shattered, stately obelisks over- 
thrown, superb mausoleums wrecked, prim grave- 
yards strewn with sad disorder ; but the dead will 
rise ! Humanity cannot be clothed upon with its 
house which is from heaven except through 
mighty convulsions and sorrows. Thrones must 
totter, crowns be rent, dynasties fail ; but the dead 
shall arise, and the prostrate nations stand on 
their feet. That resurrection is now being accom- 
plished ; the dry bones are astir ; they that have 
dwelt in the dust are awaking and putting on 
the glory of the higher life. Old things are 
passing away ; all things are becoming new. 
" It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incor- 
ruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in 
glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is raised in 
power : it is sown a natural body ; it is raised a 
spiritual body." 



X 

CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was 
lost. — Luke xix. 10. 

IN the reckoning of our Lord no moral dis- 
tinction existed between men, some being 
right and safe, whilst others needed salva- 
tion ; His whole teaching, as indeed the teaching 
of the New Testament throughout, goes on the 
assumption that all have sinned and come short 
of the glory of God, and that all equally stand in 
need of redeeming grace. We think, however, 
this narrative contains special teaching on this 
matter. On the morning of the day on which 
Christ entered Jericho Zacchaeus appeared the 
least likely man in all the city to become the 
penitent host of Jesus Christ, and yet it was ex- 
actly to the house of the publican that salvation 
came. The particular lesson here, then, is that 
we must not despair of the salvation of any, how- 
ever unpromising they may look or be. 

In certain quarters it is argued that some men 
are constitutionally destitute of religious suscepti- 
bilities, and it is therefore hopeless to address to 
them any religious appeal or to expect their salva- 
tion. If a man is born without the aesthetic sense, 

156 



CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 157 

we are not able to make him an artist ; if he has 
no ear for sound, we cannot educate him into a 
musician ; if he is destitute of imagination, he 
will never become a poet ; and if he comes into 
the world without spiritual and moral genius, we 
vainly attempt his conversion. Let us, then, seek 
to show that none are born without the highest 
susceptibilities and possibilities, that the most 
obtuse and unpromising of men are capable of 
salvation, and that Jesus Christ can and does in 
an extraordinary degree evoke the spirituality of 
the most selfish, sensual, and sinful of our race. 
He " came to seek and to save that which was 
lost," to do the impossible in the reckoning of the 
carnal mind. As a hive in winter is sometimes 
full of dead bees, so is human nature full of sup- 
pressed faculties which are quickened into glorious 
action by Him who is the resurrection and the life. 
I. In the most unpromising is REASON. And 
when we speak of reason, we do not mean so much 
the logical faculty, but reason on its spiritual side : 
the spiritual imagination, perception, and sensi- 
bility which recognize God and the eternal uni- 
verse. The rationality of men, thus understood, 
survives irrational conduct. They may narrow 
their reason by occupying themselves with trifles, 
pervert it by sophistries and scepticisms, debase it 
by sensual living ; but the majestic faculty is there 
if only it can be reached. We have an illustration 
of this in the first chapter of the book of the prophet 
Isaiah. " Ah sinful nation, a people laden with 



158 CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 

iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that deal 
corruptly : they have forsaken the Lord, they have 
despised the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged 
and gone backward." " The whole head is sick, 
and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the 
foot even unto the head there is no soundness in 
it ; but wounds and bruises, and festering sores." 
Their " hands are full of blood." Heaven averts 
its face when they pray, and spurns their vain ob- 
lations and solemn meeting. Sixteen verses of 
terrible accusation and conviction ! And what is 
the next verse ? " Come now, and let us reason 
together, saith the Lord : though your sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
The divine faculty was unextinguished. Mon- 
strously wronged, its majesty outraged, its coun- 
sels set at nought, the noble oracle still survived, 
and to it heaven immediately appeals. 

The same sublime faculty is existent in the most 
unpromising of our fellows to-day. The Spirit of 
God keeps the spiritual reason alive in men — the 
sense of God, righteousness, and immortality — even 
when it might be thought that all such elements 
had perished through neglect and disobedience. 
Bates, in his Travels on the Amazon, tells of his 
astonishment in discovering, when far in the in- 
terior, a slight rise and fall of the water in a small 
creek which traversed the forest. He was nearly 
six hundred miles up country, and he hesitated to 
believe that at such a distance it was possible for 



CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 159 

the sea to make itself felt. But it was really so. 
" Yes, the tide ! the throb of the great oceanic 
pulse felt far away in a remote corner," leagues 
away from the place where the sea strikes the 
mouth of the Amazon. Similarly, humanity may 
lose sight of God and wander in the darkest and 
remotest depths of the far country ; yet it is still 
conscious of the throb of the eternal. 

Who like Christ can evoke the spiritual reason 
of the irrational? In the days of His flesh He 
elicited in a wonderful manner the reason of the 
ignorant and prejudiced, the sensual, sceptical, and 
deranged ; even the demoniac sat at His feet 
clothed and in his right mind. The denser the 
brain, the greater must be the teacher. And to- 
day the word of Christ finds and evokes the spir- 
itual sense of the most unpromising. Gross indul- 
gence, stolid selfishness, perverse pride seriously 
cloud the faculty by which we apprehend the high- 
est things ; yet, diseased and deranged, the organ 
is still there, and Christ is the opener of the eyes 
of men born blind. Why does He thus beyond all 
others pierce to the soul and arouse the most ab- 
normal intelligence? Because He is incarnate 
Reason, and in His presence the divine element 
in us awakes, our reason acknowledges Him and 
responds to His claim,, and we know that He who 
thus reveals the soul can save it. 

If we to-day are to move men, we must remem- 
ber their greatness and appeal to their spiritual 
sense, even when they have fallen the lowest. 



160 CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 

One of our statesmen recently declared to a re- 
ligious assembly that if the modern Church is to 
make any impression upon the masses it must 
"appeal to the infinity that is in them." Yes, we 
must go to them with something above and be- 
yond appeals to their temporal welfare ; we must 
urge upon them great truths, ideals, motives, hopes ; 
we must appeal to the infinity that is in them. If 
we do this, if in Christ's name and spirit we chal- 
lenge their spiritual consciousness, their sense of 
the divine and eternal, we cannot appeal in vain. 

II. In the most unpromising is CONSCIENCE. 
Like reason, conscience long survives neglect and 
maltreatment. Its counsels are disregarded, its 
authority flouted, its exquisite sense dulled, yet a 
divine overshadowing preserves it alive and ready 
for action in the critical hour. What a striking il- 
lustration of this is given in the opening of the 
Epistle to the Romans ! Here a terrible picture is 
drawn of the condition of the two great divisions 
of mankind. Burke said that it was difficult to 
draw up an indictment against a whole nation, but 
the apostle draws up an indictment against the 
race. He gives a terrible picture of the classic 
age. Every touch deepens the darkness ; and the 
picture, when finished, is unutterably distressing. 
" They were filled with all unrighteousness, covet- 
ousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, strife, 
deceit, malignity.' ' They were given up to a rep- 
robate mind, and became guilty of whatsoever was 
inhuman, base, and obscene. The apostle then 



CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 161 

maintained that substantially the Jew is no better 
than the Gentile. What immediately follows this 
tremendous impeachment ? The question of con- 
science. The Jew has the law both within him 
and without ; and as for the Gentiles, " they show 
the work of the law written in their hearts, their 
conscience bearing witness therewith, and their 
thoughts one with another accusing or else ex- 
cusing them." Throughout the mighty moral de- 
basement which prevailed, conscience continued to 
do its office, and to this organ of righteousness 
Paul made his confident appeal. And to-day, 
whatever the wickedness of men, we may always 
assume with equal confidence that there is still 
within them a living law contending for truth and 
purity. 

Once again, let us remark upon the wonderful 
power of Christ to awake the moral sense of the 
most unpromising. We have just said that He 
calls forth morbid reason because He is incarnate 
Reason ; let us now affirm that He evokes the 
most abnormal conscience because He is incarnate 
Righteousness. What an illustration of Christ's 
mastery of conscience is given in this very narra- 
tive ! Think of Zacchaeus on the morning of that 
day ! "He was the chief among the publicans, 
and he was rich." What room for the imagina- 
tion ! Full of guilty gains, and entirely impeni- 
tent. In the far North the quicksilver freezes in 
the thermometer, which of course ceases to regis- 
ter, and whilst the cold continues even for months 



162 CHEIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 

and years the instrument remains useless ; but let 
the temperature rise, and the quicksilver becomes 
at once nimble and indicative. That morning in 
Zacchseus the moral quicksilver was frozen, and 
most likely it had been for years ; he, however, 
no sooner stood in the white fierce light of em- 
bodied righteousness than the quicksilver thawed, 
conscience acted, and the publican was convicted. 
"And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord, 
Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the 
poor ; and if I have taken anything from any man 
by false accusation, I restore it fourfold." Not a 
word had been said about his peculations ; yet in 
the presence of the righteous Lord he voluntarily 
and promptly made a clean breast of it. 

If to-day we are to move the multitude, we must 
attack the moral sense. The Church of Christ 
does not primarily appeal to intellect, imagination, 
or sentiment, but to the conscience. Men must be 
brought into the presence of the righteous God. 
" Now mine eye seeth Thee, I repent and abhor 
myself in dust and ashes." We must enforce the 
imperativeness of the holy commandments, and 
faithfully set forth the awful consequences of trans- 
gression. These doctrines have been softened 
until they have no edge. We need to address 
men in the spirit and method of Jesus Christ, who 
came to " convince the world of sin, righteous- 
ness, and judgment." He who is incarnate Right- 
eousness pierces to the organ of righteousness in 
the human breast even when that organ seems 



CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 163 

utterly aborted, and the guilty one responds, "God 
be merciful to me, a sinner." 

III. In the most unpromising of men is AFFEC- 
TION. To the natural eye it may sometimes seem 
as though the faculty of love had been sinned 
away, and that men had become incapable of fine 
feeling, of gratitude, affection, loyalty, sacrifice, 
devotion. We speak of heartless people, and 
sometimes it seems as if there were such. But 
realty this is never the case. A city missionary 
has witnessed that what impressed him most in 
prosecuting his work in dark neighbourhoods was 
"the goodness of the bad." He meant to say 
that he was astonished to find how abandoned 
men and women on occasion would flash out 
heroism, melt in love, bleed in sacrifice, and, for 
the moment at least, reveal the purest, kindliest, 
sublimest qualities. Yes, the Spirit of God keeps 
alive in the most abandoned and hardened of men 
and women the genius of love, linking them with 
the upper universe and the higher hope. We 
need not despair of any ; in the worst is a heart 
capable of the eternal love and of the paradise 
which grows out of that love. However unprom- 
ising the exterior, the heart is there. To escape 
trouble and waste, pearl-divers are using the 
Roentgen rays to see whether the oyster contains 
a pearl or not. But no Roentgen rays are needed 
to test the human heart ; in the roughest shell is a 
jewel. 

What a wonderful power of evoking the latent 



164: CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 

divinity of our fallen nature did our Lord exer- 
cise ! Why ? Why did He thus evoke the slum- 
bering possibilities of the heart ? What was the 
secret of His efficacy ? Because He came to us 
with a mighty appeal of affection and sacrifice. 
We said that Christ aroused the reason of the 
irrational because He is incarnate Reason; that 
He stimulates into life drugged, seared, dead con- 
sciences because He is incarnate Righteousness : 
He also kindles into flame, melts into tenderness, 
the frozen, ossified, petrified heart because He is 
incarnate Love. It is attested by ten thousand 
evidences that the love of Christ Crucified awakens 
love in hearts that other loves fail to touch. The 
pierced Hand best strikes the missing chord in 
the human breast. 

If the Church of Christ is to prevail, it must not 
neglect this, its crowning argument and appeal. 
The love of God as that love is revealed in the 
Son of God must be our theme. It is not for us 
primarily to enlarge on the divine love as evi- 
denced in the treasures and splendours of nature ; 
but to set forth the condescending, suffering, bleed- 
ing, dying love of Nazareth and Calvary. " Herein 
is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved 
us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our 
sins." The love that pities us in our misery, that 
wins our trust, that forgives our sin, that purifies 
and energizes our heart ! Love personal, bound- 
less, free, saving to the uttermost, is our grand 
message. This is the power that penetrates and 



CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 165 

masters the most morbid mind, the most abnormal 
heart. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men 
unto Me." 

IV. In the most unpromising is Will. It 
often seems as though men utterly lost will-power 
to all that is good. If the will is the centre of 
personality, it looks as though some in human 
shape were only phantoms. With many fine 
features, they are yet devoid of resolution. As 
soon as the opportunity to do evil presents itself, 
they do it. They appear no more able to resist 
temptation than a heap of gunpowder to resist a 
spark. These men and women are the despair of 
their friends, the despair of philosophers, reform- 
ers, and statesmen. 

Our Lord always assumed that the most im- 
potent of men possessed will-power, however long 
it had remained unused. How strikingly this is 
exhibited in the parable of the Prodigal Son ! 
The youth is swept away by passion, carried into 
a far country, reduced to the deepest degradation ; 
and yet, awaking to his misery, he cries, " I will 
arise and go to my father." Christ did not put 
this word into the prodigal's lips without deep 
purpose. He meant to teach that in the feeblest 
and most forlorn of sinners resides the majestic 
faculty by which they may lay hold of God's 
strength and return to His dwelling-place. And 
the Saviour appealed to the will of those whom 
He sought to bless. " What wilt thou I should 
do to thee ? " " Wilt thou be made whole ? " He 



166 CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 

addressed Himself directly to this faculty, and 
found response even when it seemed impossible. 
Already we have said that He was incarnate 
Reason, incarnate Righteousness, incarnate Love; 
now He is incarnate Power : and because He is 
the power of God He evoked the will of the most 
helpless, and recovered the diseased, the deranged, 
the palsied, the paralytic, the demoniac. And 
just as the Church to-day appeals in the name of 
Jesus to the will of the helpless, the moral cripple 
stands up, he treads on the lion and adder, the 
young lion and the dragon he tramples underfeet. 
It is surprising what fine powers exist in the 
ruin of the brain, and how they will reveal them- 
selves if only sympathetically excited. The French 
record a striking story respecting a peasant girl 
who was repeatedly found guilty of stealing 
flowers, and in consequence condemned to one 
of the prisons of Paris. Touching this form of 
crime the culprit was manifestly insane and in- 
corrigible. A director of prison-labour set the 
convicts to make artificial flowers, and this de- 
mented girl among the rest. She was delighted, 
enthusiastically making roses from morning to 
night. As she continued her joyous task her 
mental maladies ceased, and she was discharged 
from prison sane and happy, to become one of 
the most successful florists in Paris. If only the 
right chord could be struck, and offenders against 
the social law oftener disciplined along the right 
lines, may we not believe that such instances of 



CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 167 

recovery would be immensely multiplied ? Sadly 
obscured and deranged, the sense of truth, beauty, 
and power yet survives ; and at the prompting of 
the wise appeal and the just education, these 
clouded senses joyously reveal themselves. Re- 
move the accidents which deflect and shroud the 
brain, and reason and goodness shine out in 
native beauty. Thus Christ treated abnormal 
humanity. He always proceeded on the assump- 
tion that in the worst were the divinest faculties ; 
He addressed Himself confidently to the soul as 
fully capable of knowledge and righteousness, 
however its workings had been thwarted by the 
accidents of flesh and circumstance ; and, turning 
the currents of life into right channels, He made 
the very passions that had hitherto brought weak- 
ness, shame, and misery, to become the elements 
of strength, glory, and gladness. 

We do not believe that one of the great 
faculties of humanity is missing in any person. 
They may be sadly obscured, disordered, atro- 
phied, but they are still existent and rich in pos- 
sibilities. The musician is in us, the artist, the 
poet, and all we need is adequate stimulation, 
provocation, solicitation. If Orpheus could play 
to us, all would be musicians ; if Venus were un- 
veiled to our eyes, all would be artists ; if Apollo 
were to descend in our midst, all would be poets. 
And so all the moral faculties are in us, in every 
one of us, and what is needed is the presence, the 
appeal, the inspiration of the sufficient One. The 



168 CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 

sufficient One is the Lord Jesus. What Orpheus 
is to the ear, what Venus is to the eye, what 
Apollo is to the imagination, that Christ is- — ah ! 
and infinitely more — to the reason, the conscience, 
the affections, the will. He elicits the ri^ht mind 
of the demoniac, He calls forth purest affection in 
Mary Magdalene, He evokes the conscience in 
Zacchaeus, and in the thief on the cross He 
awakens the instinct for the divine and im- 
mortal. Let no man despair of himself. We 
may be sepulchres full of dead powers ; but Christ 
is the resurrection and the life, to make us shrines 
full of living, seeing, soaring, rejoicing thoughts 
and passions. Let no man despair of his brother. 
Contact with Christ is the shock that startles the 
dead, awakening them into glorious life. 

It is often charged against the Church of Christ 
that it does society the gravest disservice by its 
sympathy with the degenerate and incapable. 
The most fatal thing of all is to conserve and per- 
petuate the unfit. What is needed most impera- 
tively to-day is for the nation, or perhaps a feder- 
ated Europe, to devote itself to the task of breed- 
ing from itself a race capable of taking over, and 
becoming responsible for, the future of life on the 
planet. The aristocracy of the present, the strong, 
the clever, the noble, must carefully eliminate the 
unfit, and seek out of itself to create a still ex- 
celling aristocracy of talent, power, and enjoy- 
ment. On the contrary, the Church of Christ 
makes such progress impossible by its patronage 



CHRIST AND ABNORMAL LIFE 169 

of the impotent, by attempting to secure the sur- 
vival of the unhealthier types, by contemplating 
the victory of the abnormal. Could any miscon- 
ception be greater ? The religion of Christ does 
not seek to perpetuate the unfit, but to make the 
unfit fit to live ; not to multiply the abnormal, but 
to convert it to rationality and wholeness ; not to 
give ascendency to the servile and disinherited, 
but to make every one of them bear the likeness 
of a king. This is Christ's way to create the new 
nobility, the aristocracy of the future. " Instead 
of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou 
may est make princes in all the earth." The 
truth of Christ reveals the greatness and sacred- 
ness of the weakest and worst ; the grace of 
Christ converts the weakest and worst into the 
strongest and noblest. " Instead of the thorn shall 
come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall 
come up the myrtle-tree : and it shall be to the 
Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall 
not be cut off." 



XI 

THE STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God t unto a full-grown man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. — Eph, iv. 13. 

THE apostle is treating of the perfection of 
the Church, yet this involves the possi- 
bility of the perfection of the individual 
member. The mystic supposes that each particle 
of the aroma of the rose is in the figure of a rose, 
that the rose-form is itself a series of rose organi- 
zation ; and so a perfect and glorious Church is 
possible only as its single constituent members are 
perfect. Governed by the text, let us consider the 
standard of Christian character, and then look at 
the perfection of that standard. 

I. The Standard of Christian Character. 
"The measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." Christ Himself is the pattern as He is 
the perfecter. It is urged by non-Christian critics 
that we are entirely wrong in making our Lord 
the pattern and standard of character ; they argue 
that a bodiless ideal is, in every department of 
thought and action, the truest source of guidance 
and inspiration. The supreme homage of the 
soul, the absolute surrender of our being, can 

17P 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 171 

rightly be rendered only to the Perfect, as it haunts 
us frojn within, as the unembodied Ideal, as the 
moral measure of creature and Creator alike. To 
set up Jesus Christ as the embodiment of the 
moral ideal is to imperil our moral being. Our 
safety lies in the worship of the Real, the Unem- 
bodied, the Invisible, Universal, Diffused, Ever- 
present, and Always- pressing Moral Ideal, im- 
manent in each of us and in society ; and we are 
traitors and betrayers if we turn away to any Per- 
son, however good. The indefinite, abstract, 
shadowy thought of perfection is better than any 
attempted incarnation of it ; indeed, to set before 
us a concrete image or pattern is to quench in- 
spiration, and forbid high excellence in any direc- 
tion whatever. 

In the cultivation of manners we are told that 
the ideal is more helpful than example can ever 
be. Each fashionably disposed person consults 
the pattern within. The very life of good man- 
ners depends upon the direct worship of an unem- 
bodied ideal of deportment. It is fatal to imitate 
or to look to another as a model. Now, is this 
so ? Shakespeare recognizes that the world of 
fashion has its sanctioned leaders, whose example 
is closely studied and imitated. 

He was indeed the glass 
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. 

The lovers of style consult no interior pattern — 
they follow the recognized leader of the actual 



172 STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

world of elegance. The world of fashion has al- 
ways had its embodied ideal, and, could it entice 
Apollo into visibility, would be only too glad to 
copy his graces. 

Next, we are warned against the fatal effect of 
setting up an absolute master in art. We are in- 
formed that the great painters and poets worship 
only the Absolute Beauty ; this vision, that at once 
haunts and eludes, is their only object of rever- 
ence. The answer to this is, the artist seeks the 
ideal in the actual. He represents what he has 
seen, and renders it with a fidelity that can be veri- 
fied and appreciated by all. Reynolds did not 
paint the Universal but the human face and fig- 
ure ; Gainsborough did not portray the Invisible 
and Diffused, but the landscape whose splendour 
we see, whose fragrance we inhale, and to whose 
music we listen. The imagination has its noble 
uses, but it never dispenses with actuality ; or, if 
it does, becomes illegitimate. Suppose Venus 
were to be incarnated, would not such a manifes- 
tation flutter the aesthetical world ? Every lover 
of the lovely would crowd the privileged centre 
where the ideal and the actual so strangely and 
delightfully met. And if artists are helped by the 
study of the likeness of Venus, as rendered by 
great masters of marble and colour, would they be 
confounded by the vision of her breathing self? 

Finally, we are reminded that science rejects 
authorities ; it does not adore Aristotle, nor wor- 
ship Kepler ; it grows because it keeps clear of 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 173 

such idolatry, and follows the gleam. The con- 
fusion of thought here need not detain us. No 
person is, nor can be, the ideal of science, although 
a scientist may find inspiration in a great brother 
scientist, as Cuvier worked at his desk with the 
portrait of Isaac Newton before him. The ideal 
of science is the embodied truth of the visible uni- 
verse. The scientist does not seek his ideal within 
his brain ; his ideal is the truth incarnate in the 
actual world. 

In short, in no department is perfection sought 
through theory, but always in the contemplation 
of the perfect, as it may be found more or less 
clearly expressed. The student of manners is not 
introspective ; he is a close observer of the world 
of etiquette. The lover of art does not exhaust 
himself on the theory of the beautiful ; he becomes 
a master through the study of masterpieces. Lis- 
tening to orators, the student of the art of speak- 
ing becomes eloquent. And the musician attains 
distinction, not by dreaming that he can hear the 
angels sing, but by closely following the lines of 
sensuous harmony. No one ever gave a defini- 
tion or description of abstract perfection ; none 
ever found within himself any clear image of it ; 
we pursue perfection through the knowledge of 
the concrete ; and we realize it, so far as it is pos- 
sible to realize it, in the emulation of the choicest 
examples we know. It is impossible to dispense 
with instances and demonstrations, with patterns 
and examples, with personality and embodiment, 



174 STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

such is the constitution of the human mind. As 
Edmund Burke affirms in his first letter On the 
Regicide Peace, " And is, then, example nothing? 
It is everything. Example is the school of man- 
kind, and they will learn at no other." 

All this is as true in religion and ethics as in the 
several departments just named. Here also the 
abstract must be exhibited in the concrete to be- 
come adequately influential. The vast majority 
of men are sensible of the inefficacy of the elusive 
moral ideals of philosophers and poets. It is re- 
ported of Goethe that "he resolved to live with 
steady purpose in the Whole, the Good, the Beauti- 
ful." Such vague language may have a meaning 
for the imaginative few ; it has, however, as little 
interest and value for the million as the auroral 
gleam of a winter's sky. Mrs. Humphrey Ward 
justly expressed the truth on this matter when she 
wrote : " There is no approaching the ideal for the 
masses except through the human life— through 
one much loved, much trusted soul, to some eternal 
verity." This is not only correct touching the 
masses, it is true also of the rarest minds ; and the 
Incarnation is heaven's gracious concession to this 
organic need of our nature. The unembodied, the 
invisible, the diffused moral ideal is mental moon- 
shine that warms and ripens nothing ; the moral 
ideal in Jesus Christ is as when the sun goes forth 
in his strength — it calls forth the response of our 
moral sense, it enthuses the heart, evokes the will, 
stirs, energizes, and perfects the whole personality. 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 175 

Through that much loved, much trusted One we 
come to eternal verity. 

II. The Perfection of the Christian 
Standard of Character. " Till we all attain 
unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the 
stature of the fullness of Christ." 

i. The loftiness of the ideal. " The stature of 
the Christ." The thought of the highest conceiv- 
able goodness is here. The apostle had no con- 
ception of a perfection transcending that of our 
Lord. He felt that his Master had given the ages 
a type of character that was unique, and that His 
doctrine of righteousness was incomparable. But 
to-day it has become fashionable to sneer at the 
New Testament ideal of conduct as lacking eleva- 
tion, and its censors affect to discover purer and 
loftier principles. It is not irrelevant to ask how 
it has come to pass that these theories of a super- 
fine virtue should be forthcoming so liberally in 
these later days. Classical moralists were not 
moved to invent strained ideals touching what men 
ought to be and what they ought to do. Marcus 
Aurelius writes, " Never hope to realize Plato's 
Republic. Let it be sufficient that you have in 
some slight degree ameliorated mankind, and do 
not think that amelioration a matter of small 
importance." These old thinkers were so fully 
persuaded of the frailty of human nature, and the 
severity of its environment, that they felt no temp- 
tation to mock it by extravagant ethical ideals. 
The simple explanation of the presence amongst 



176 STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

us to-day of these excelling moralists is that Jesus 
Christ has raised immensely the conception of hu- 
man nature, and kindled an enthusiasm of right- 
eousness of which the ancients knew nothing. 

An old legend relates that once the birds agreed 
to have a king, and they resolved that the bird 
which flew the highest should wear the crown. 
The cunning wren, reckoning that the strength 
of the eagle would prevail, perched itself on the 
eagle's back ; and when the royal bird reached its 
last point of ascension, up went the wren into a 
height yet beyond. If it is asked how our secular 
rationalistic moralists came to attempt the thin air 
of an unaccustomed heaven, the answer is clear — 
on the eagle wings of the Christian faith. These 
attempts, however, to surpass the Christian stand- 
ard have not justified themselves. What became 
of that wren does not appear ; but the ambitious 
speculative moralist has certainly not sustained 
his flight. The New Testament conception of 
holiness marks the extreme limit of practical con- 
duct. Fifty years ago Positivism challenged the 
righteousness of God, but its transcending prin- 
ciple of disinterestedness has few to vindicate it 
to-day. Comte held that his doctrine of loving 
our neighbour and ignoring ourselves was that of 
pure altruism, whilst the Christian doctrine of lov- 
ing our neighbour as ourselves was only a refined 
selfishness ; but the vast majority of thinking men 
reject a superfine theory which is discredited the 
moment it is attempted to apply it to practical 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 177 

life. The boast that " the morality of Positivism 
is above our head, whilst the morality of Jesus 
Christ is beneath our feet," contains a measure 
of truth ; yet we require something under our feet, 
and the rock that sustains our steps is of more 
consequence than the rainbow that mocks our eyes. 
Pessimism now essays to eclipse the Christian 
ideal by postulating the Superman. It is indeed 
unexpected to encounter the doctrines of entire 
sanctification and glorification in the sphere of 
infidel philosophy and physiology, yet so it is. 
Somewhat on the same lines as superior breeds 
of cattle are produced, a better type of man is to 
be evolved ; which type, however, will not be man 
at all. What exactly the Superman denotes, and 
in what his rare excellency will consist, none of 
his prophets can declare. " Beloved, now are we 
the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be: but we know that, when He shall 
appear, we shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him 
as He is." There is obscurity here, definitiveness 
also ; but the perfection of the Superman is a mys- 
tery that the angels of his annunciation cannot 
resolve. Humanity is a temporary bridge to a 
coming type of which we have not the faintest 
notion. The pessimistic atheist despairs of hu- 
man nature as we know it, of this world as we 
know it ; he believes that man is doomed to ex- 
tinction as one of nature's failures and freaks, and 
he takes refuge in a vague vision of a new world 
and race of whose perfection he can tell us noth- 



178 STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

ing. We believe that out of human nature as we 
know it, and by the power of divine grace as we 
prove it, we shall " attain unto a full-grown man, 
unto the measure of the stature of Christ " ; and 
we are not likely to exchange this substantial 
hope for a phosphorescent phantom known as the 
Superman. 

How remarkable is the absolute sanity of Jesus 
Christ ! With all His personal greatness, sublime 
doctrine, and vastness of outlook and purpose, He 
never loses sight of the facts of human nature, of 
the truth of things, of the actualities and possi- 
bilities of our life ; His loftiest requirements are 
yet manifestly reasonable and practical. History 
sufficiently reveals the extreme evil of adopting 
impossible ideals. What is too bright and good 
is not good enough ; what overleaps itself falls on 
the other side ; what is over-ripe is rotten. Whilst 
straining after ethical originality and refinement, 
philosophers and saints have again and again 
fallen into eccentricity, illusion, and immorality. 
The New Testament gives no sanction to these 
aberrations. Men who have more respect for 
science than for Scripture listen deferentially to 
Darwin when he affirms that " Natural election 
never improves an animal beyond its needs " ; so 
they might defer to our Lord, who unfailingly re- 
members our situation, never enjoining a theoret- 
ical perfection incompatible with actual life, and 
which therefore would not be a perfection at all. 
Revelation exalts character to heavenly places in 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 179 

Christ Jesus ; but it never fails to draw the line at 
the delicate point where the sublime passes into 
the impossible or the grotesque. The most un- 
likely thing at this hour is that the Christian ideal 
of character will be surpassed, or its conception of 
duty be superseded. To gild Christ's refined gold 
is to debase the moral currency ; to paint His lily 
is to poison it ; to add another hue to His rain- 
bow is to blemish the heavens. The splendours 
of nature are not more beyond the art of sculptors 
and painters than are the ideals and example of 
our Lord beyond the rivalries of philosophers and 
saints. 

2. The fullness of the Christian ideal. " Unto a 
full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ." The fullness of Christ 
as a revelation of humanity is a favourite theme 
with St. Paul. Whatever pertains to the perfec- 
tion of human nature and the completeness of 
human life is found in our Lord expressly or 
potentially. A recent writer asks this question : 
" Of all the men that have lived, can we name a 
single one in whom the spirit of all humanity has 
dwelt?" 1 And, replying to his own query, he 
proceeds, " Even of the Prophet of Nazareth it 
was possible for so devout a man as Carlyle to 
say, with regret, ' There is no Falstaff in Him.' " 
Can we name a single one in whom the spirit of 
all humanity has dwelt? Yes. "The Son of 
Man." And one of the most convincing proofs of 

1 A. R. Orage. 



180 STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

His universality, that He was the " synthetic 
man," the gatherer and revealer of all the powers 
of humanity, is found in the fact that His hostile 
critics produce no charge against Him except that 
they find " no FalstafT in Him " ! As though He, 
who was for our advantage nailed to the bitter 
cross, was to amuse us also ! A comic mask has 
stamped its mimic features on the lava of Hercu- 
laneum ; but there is something positively wanton 
in expecting the elements of humour in Him who 
came on the serious business whose symbol is the 
Cross. How perfect must He be in whom His 
adversaries can find no other fault than this ! 

But the objection is exceedingly popular that 
the faith of Christ does not work out in the per- 
fection of the whole man. Our religion is 
charged with neglecting certain sides of human 
nature, various spheres of human activity. It has 
little to say about health, pleasure, art, science, 
literature, government, industry, and other sub- 
jects of similar import. Its tendency is toward 
the morbid — to asceticism in eating and drinking, 
to a deadness to the beauties of nature and the 
aspirations of art, to an acquiescence in a low 
level of mental and bodily existence. The Greek 
had a larger programme than the Hebrew, and we 
are represented as losing much by adopting the 
narrower creed. 

What is the precise truth on this matter ? It is 
here. The Greek entertained a lofty idea of 
human nature, and passionately sought physical, 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 181 

intellectual, and aesthetic perfection ; yet all 
competent scholars agree that he failed to em- 
phasize conscience. This was the marked omis- 
sion of his splendid creed. He had everything 
except the main thing. On the other hand, whilst 
the New Testament says little about corporeal, 
mental, or artistic perfection, it is copious and im- 
perative on the question of conscience. It omits 
everything except the main thing. And was not 
our Lord right ? Do we not, first of all, need to 
be saved from the blighting power of moral law- 
lessness ? Is not the essential malady of the race 
here ? Is not salvation from selfishness, irregular 
desire, ignoble passion, false aims, the primary 
need of the race ? Just as a physician has little to 
say to his patients about beauty or music, politics 
or trade, but concentrates himself on the disease 
and peril of the sufferer ; so the great Physician 
of the race concentrates Himself on the healing 
and health of the spirit. The world at its best is 
little to the sick ; and all is nothing to a diseased 
and tortured soul. Let us, however, not forget 
that though our Master did omit various items of 
the worldly programme, He did not forbid nor de- 
preciate them. Nothing can be farther from the 
truth than to suggest that He did so. He simply 
taught that through the power of character we 
possess all things. Through personal godliness 
and spiritual righteousness we attain and retain 
all the glories of intellectual life, all the riches of 
material life, all the delights of social life. Our 



182 STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

Gospel brings us the heavenly wisdom, the inward 
peace, the power of pure living, the mighty hope, 
which enable us to possess our possessions, and to 
enjoy them forever. 

So far as the fullness of bodily existence, appre- 
ciation of art, science, and knowledge, intellectual 
and political freedom, and a pure joy in all the 
pleasures of sense are concerned, our creed is as 
broad as that of rationalism. We draw the line at 
egotism and license ; but this is not to narrow life, 
only to secure it in its wholeness and fullness. We 
fear God, because thus we realize ourselves, who 
are made in His image ; we keep the moral law, 
because it is the charter of liberty, health, and 
peace; we practice self-denial because it is the 
secret of self-development. " A full-grown man." 
In palm-houses noble trees are sometimes dis- 
figured because their glassy palace is insufficiently 
lofty ; in the Zoological Gardens eagles are 
cramped in narrow cages : but our religion allows 
space and freedom for the fullness of our faculty. 
The monastery thrusts human nature into a nar- 
row mould, denying it the glory and joy of free 
expansion : but the Church of God is not a mon- 
astery ; it is as wide as the horizon, spacious as 
the ampler air, securing liberty and supplying 
stimulation to every faculty and aspiration of our 
manifold nature. 

Let us, then, as Christian believers, go on to 
realize our faith in all its lengths and breadths. 
From mistaken considerations Christians have 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 183 

often been narrower than their creed ; although 
this no more qualifies the catholicity of Jesus Christ 
than bad actors discredit Shakespeare or poor 
players shame Mozart. Let us, however, give no 
justification to the enemy. "If we would be per- 
fect, we must add to the Hebrew interest in right- 
eousness the Greek interest in the true and beauti- 
ful, as well as the Teutonic enthusiasm for action 
and practical achievement. ,, Well, add them ; 
there is no reason that we should not, there is 
every reason that we should. Having the king- 
dom of God and His righteousness, let us cultivate 
every talent of our nature, and take possession of 
the " all other things " pertaining to our rich in- 
heritance. 

3. The harmoniousness of the Christian ideal. 
" Full-grown man, unto the measure of the full- 
ness of Christ." Nearly all the gifted writers who 
attempt a Life of Christ remark on the extreme 
difficulty of representing their subject because of 
the faultlessness and harmoniousness of His char- 
acter ; it being so much easier to depict the partial 
and irregular than to describe the smoothness of 
absolute perfection. All graces blended in the 
Master in exquisite proportion ; and whilst all feel 
the charm of His unearthly beauty, none may 
paint it. And, in truth, Christianity cannot be 
said to inculcate any special virtue, or to possess 
any distinguishing grace. The New Testa- 
ment expression of holiness contains nothing 
defective or exaggerated ; all fine features of 



184 STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 

character and action in just proportion compose 
its ideal. 

For where such various virtues we recite 
'Tis like the Milky Way, all over-bright, 
But sown so thick with stars 'tis undistinguished light. 

Completeness, plenitude, justness, constitute 
Christlikeness. It was an artistic law in Greece 
that no victor in the games could have a portrait 
statue of himself set up unless he had been suc- 
cessful in all the five forms of contest, since any- 
thing short of success in all the five would leave 
open the possibility of certain parts of his body 
having been developed at the expense of others, 
owing to which it could not at the first glance 
present, as a perfect figure ought to present, that 
perfection of adaptability in all its parts to work 
harmoniously towards one end. As the Greek 
was thus anxious to secure the full and symmet- 
rical development of the body, the faith of Christ, 
as set forth by St. Paul, is set upon the realization 
of our whole personality, in its utmost fullness and 
most delicate harmoniousness. If perfection is the 
harmonious expansion of all the powers which 
make the beauty and worth of human nature, who 
can study the New Testament without feeling that 
it contemplates the sanctification of all our powers ; 
that Christianity is the study of perfection, and the 
secret of it ? 

It is possible to sacrifice the body to the intel- 
lect, the intellect to the body, or the conscience 



STANDARDIZATION OF CHARACTER 185 

to both ; but our faith involves no such sacrifice, 
irregularity, or disproportion. The body is held 
in reverence, a sacredness is henceforth attached 
to it beyond anything antiquity surmised, and the 
habits which secure its health, strength, and beauty 
are rigidly insisted upon. Reason, knowledge, 
wisdom, in their largest sweep and highest flight, 
here receive sanction and inspiration. The whole 
range of the virtues is comprehended, and every 
jewel of righteousness, in its turn, is honoured, 
and the spirit, capable of God and destined for the 
eternal, is exalted as its kingliness demands, and 
gives the crowning glory to our manifold nature. 
Setting the Master ever before us, and remember- 
ing the greatness of our calling in Him, His lofti- 
ness, completeness, and beauty shall pass into our 
spirit and character. Nothing low, narrow, partial, 
or unlovely shall survive ; the essential glory of 
human nature shall be revealed in us, because 
Christ dwells richly in our heart. 



XII 
THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 

Moreover, thou hast not brought us into a land that jioweth 
with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vine- 
yards. — Num. xvi. 14. 

ISRAEL came out of Egypt with a great 
promise. " And the Lord said. I have surely 
seen the affliction of My people which are in 
Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their 
taskmaster ; for I know their sorrows ; and I am 
come down to deliver them out of the hand of the 
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land 
unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing 
with milk and honey." Dathan and Abiram, the 
sons of Eliab, now declare that this promise has 
not been fulfilled : in so many words, they accuse 
Moses and Aaron of having deceived Israel. They 
insinuate that the tribes had been duped by plausi- 
ble representations ; instead of basking in luxurious 
landscapes, or possessing rich cities, the wilderness 
was becoming their grave, and the people were 
only too ready to believe that they had been 
cruelly deceived, unjustly and shamefully treated. 
Agitators of the type of Dathan and Abiram are 
quickly popular. The religious position to-day 
closely resembles that pictured in the text. We 
listen to a veritable chorus of complaints against 

186 



THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 187 

the Gospel and the Christian Church. Our faith, 
it is alleged, has done nothing for us ; the miseries 
of modern society are boldly laid at our doors. 
" Moreover, thou hast not brought us into a land 
that floweth with milk and honey " ; and in a fit 
of false humility the Church gives far too much 
heed to these murmurings, and paralyzes herself 
by self-depreciation. Let us, then, in the spirit of 
candour, seek the exact truth of this matter. Can 
our religion justly be considered a failure ? Can 
the Church fairly be held responsible for the ills 
of society? We believe the reproach of the Gospel 
is unjust, and that we have no reason to be ashamed 
of our Master ; we maintain that, whilst the Church 
must acknowledge her sins and failures, no reason 
exists to justify her loss of self-respect. 

I. We take the Wider Range and Con- 
sider the Promise of God to the Race at 
Large. " I have surely seen the affliction of My 
people, and I am come down to deliver them, and 
to bring them into a good land." This promise 
heaven has given to mankind — the promise of a 
terrestrial perfection and inheritance far beyond 
the existing order. The universal instinct antici- 
pates a magnificent future for humanity on the 
earth. This hope has kindled the poet's loftiest 
songs ; it has proved the sovereign solace of the 
seer ; and in it the moralist has found his strongest 
argument and best inspiration. The world in its 
youth saw visions, and, growing old, dreams 
dreams not less splendid. Tragic experience does 



188 THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 

not destroy sentiment ; reasoned pessimism does 
not strangle instinctive optimism ; ages of conflict 
and suffering fail to quench the prophetic poetry 
of the human heart. All nations, ages, and faiths 
share in the great hope for which so little can be 
said on any experimental ground. And what is 
this magnificent hope, so universal and persistent, 
but the handwriting of God in the spirit of the 
race ! Moreover, this instinct of expectation is 
fully authenticated by revelation. " I have surely 
seen the affliction of My people, and I am come 
down to deliver them." Here is the sum of reve- 
lation ; the whole of the sacred book is the self- 
same promise writ large. To this all the prophets 
and apostles witness. We hold the solemn and 
indubitable declaration of the Father of all flesh 
that His purpose is to bring the nations out of this 
present disordered and unhappy condition into a 
new earth full of all glorious things. 

Yet all are agreed that this hope has not 
hitherto been fulfilled. We cannot mistake the 
world as we know it for the one promised to our 
fathers. And this fact many impatiently and bit- 
terly bemoan. "Thou hast not brought us into a 
land that floweth with milk and honey, or given 
us inheritance of fields and vineyards.' ' The new 
earth does not appear. The golden age has not 
dawned. The abundance of peace seems as far 
off as ever. How is this ? 

Scepticism gives a stark denial to the great ex- 
pectation. The millennium is nothing more than 



THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 189 

a mocking mirage of the strange wilderness in 
which we wander ; poets, prophets, and preachers 
may be deceived by it, but the austere rationalist 
knows it for what it is — an unsubstantial image 
painted on the desert vapour. The crimes and 
miseries of men arise out of the very constitution 
of things, and only visionaries anticipate an ideal 
world. We reply to this scepticism, " It would be 
unphilosophical to mistrust a deep and persistent 
instinct." Dr. Duncan said of the Gospel, " It is 
too grand to be false " ; and we may say the same 
of the steady and brilliant hope which is the solace 
and inspiration of mankind. Pessimism is always 
reasoned, and therefore partakes of the suspicion 
attaching to all reasoning ; optimism is instinctive, 
and carries with it the authority of the truthful- 
ness of nature. " Truth is at the bottom of a 
well " ; certainly, if anywhere, at the bottom of 
that deepest of all wells — the human heart. The 
poetry of prophecy is logic set on fire. Our vast 
hope is our grandest asset, and one that the ra- 
tionalist ought not to ignore. We refuse to be- 
lieve that the sinfulness and wretchedness of man- 
kind are organic and eternal ; we believe rather 
in that audacious and persistent instinct which 
heralds a nobler and happier world, and which 
continues to justify itself by sustaining and ad- 
vancing the actual world. 

Secularism has its own answer. The bright side 
of the secularism and socialism of which we hear 
so much is its hopefulness. The contemporary 



190 THE REPKOACH OF THE GOSPEL 

literature of secularism glows with the imagery of 
Isaiah and St. John ; it gives fresh expression to 
the inextinguishable hopefulness of the human 
heart. But it goes wrong in attempting to ex- 
plain the reasons which delay the golden day. 
In its philosophy the solution of the problem of 
progress is purely intellectual. Our sociological 
theories are false ; our political programmes are 
misconceived ; our statesmen are unskillful ; the 
currency is based on false principles ; our com- 
mercial system needs revision ; we have failed to 
cultivate science, and the right kind of science. 
We are kept in the wilderness by intellectual ig- 
norance. It is impossible to accept this explana- 
tion. No geographical, topographical, or eco- 
nomic misconception barred Canaan to the Israel- 
ites ; and no intellectual blunder keeps the race 
out of its promised rest. We must get rid of the 
notion that the fundamental problem of society is 
intellectual. No political Moses will deliver us 
out of Egypt; no philosophical Aaron guide us 
through the desert ; no scientific Joshua lead us 
over Jordan. 

When God gave Israel the great promise, it 
was accompanied by a condition. " Ye shall dili- 
gently keep the commandments of the Lord your 
God, and His testimonies, and His statutes, which 
He hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do 
that which is right and good in the sight of the 
Lord: that it may be well with thee, and that 
thou mayest go in and possess the good land 



THE KEPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 191 

which the Lord sware unto thy fathers." Their 
carcases fell in the wilderness because they failed 
to keep the moral condition of their charter. The 
fixing of their soul on false gods, sloth, pride, 
sensuality, selfishness, kept the chosen people out 
of Canaan ; and the fault is chiefly moral that 
defrauds the race of that grander inheritance 
which flickers alluringly before its eyes. Forget- 
fulness of God, and the unrighteousness that arises 
out of that forgetfulness, explains the prolonga- 
tion of our exile, the postponement of our hope. 
" Let no man deceive you with vain words : for 
because of these things cometh the wrath of God 
upon the children of disobedience." We are all 
persuaded that the world is capable of a far higher 
glory and felicity than it has attained. Science is 
continually indicating the suppressed magnificence 
of the physical universe ; a bird of paradise is hid- 
den in every crow, a rose in every weed. Society 
is yet fuller of glorious possibilities. It is admitted 
on all hands that our civilization is veritable bar- 
barism compared with what might so easily be. 
For what, then, are we waiting ? " For the mani- 
festation of the sons of God " ; that is, for a godly, 
righteous, brotherly race. Isaiah gives the key to 
the millennial earth he so graphically describes : 
"Thy people also shall be all righteous." Oh, 
that all men would be good for one day ; speak- 
ing the truth, keeping clean hands, walking up- 
rightly, delighting in mercy, doing justly, loving 
and fearing God, and keeping His command- 



192 THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 

merits ! In that day we should cross Jordan, the 
problems of ages would solve themselves, and 
the music of humanity make gross the music of 
the spheres. Simple goodness primarily, not 
splendid philosophy nor clever statesmanship, will 
suffice. " Thy sun shall no more go down ; neither 
shall thy moon withdraw itself : for the Lord shall 
be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy 
mourning shall be ended." 

II. We Narrow the View and Consider 
the Promise of God in Christ in the Light 
of Christendom. " I have surely seen the af- 
fliction of My people which are in Egypt, and I 
am come down to deliver them, and to bring them 
into a good land and a large." The Incarnation 
brought out the full significance of the message 
which called Israel out of Egypt. Jesus Christ 
came as the Redeemer of the race. He was mani- 
fested, a greater than Moses, to lead it out of the 
rotting civilizations of the pagan world into a 
glorious heritage of righteousness and peace. 
What the noblest heathen had seen only in vision, 
what the Israelite had received only in symbol, 
that the incarnate One was to secure in glorious 
reality of truth, holiness, and blessedness for all 
the nations. The advent of the Saviour was re- 
plete with splendid promise. 

" Yes," retorts the murmurer, " of splendid 
promise, and little more ! " They insult the Re- 
deemer, they reproach the Gospel. " Thou hast 
not brought us into a land that floweth with milk 



THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 103 

and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and 
vineyards.' ' Are the rookeries of our great cities 
an inheritance of fields and vineyards? Is the 
crust of the relieving-officer the promised milk 
and honey? Is "the bitter cry" the echo of the 
angel's song ? Is the poverty, degradation, and 
misery we see all around us the ideal State ? So 
far from being better off than the heathen, it is 
daringly declared that we are in a condition much 
more deplorable. Dathan and Abiram look back 
to Egypt and reproach Moses : %i Is it a small 
thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land 
that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the 
wilderness?" They discovered that Canaan was 
really behind them, and that their sojourn in Egypt 
had been a pleasant picnic, only it had been im- 
properly understood and foolishly disturbed. So 
to-day Jesus Christ is reproached, His Gospel and 
His Church. We were better off without them. 
"A weapon of progress in former times, Chris- 
tianity has now become an instrument of destruc- 
tion. It is the grave in which mankind buries 
what little conscience and light it still possesses." 1 
And Christianity is freely represented in infidel 
literature as an unavailing and exasperating system 
largely responsible for the diseases and discon- 
tents of our age. The flowery barbarism that the 
faith of Christ displaced has been succeeded by a 
condition of things far worse than any recorded 
in ancient history. 

1 George Sand. 



194 THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 

i. Is the Gospel, then, a failure ? In its defense, 
let us at once say that it is no failure, either in the 
case of the individual or the nation who puts it 
to the proof. The ruling races are exactly those 
who have most cordially received and honoured it. 
Whatever may be the defects of Christian civiliza- 
tion, it is better than any that preceded it; un- 
speakably better than that of Greece, based on 
slavery, or of Rome, founded in brute power. 
Compared with the New Jerusalem of Isaiah, or the 
Holy City of St. John, much is left to be desired ; 
but contrasted with Athens, Rome, or Carthage, 
the Christian State gives sufficient cause for grati- 
tude and congratulation. We must not shut our 
eyes to the fact that the civilization of Christen- 
dom is the best yet, infinitely the best. The old 
proverb counsels, " Never let fools see half-finished 
work." Shown a half-finished statue by Phidias, 
such critics pronounce it spoilt marble ; shown a 
half-finished picture by Rubens, they adjudge it a 
daub ; shown a half-finished palace by Michael 
Angelo, they express contempt, and prefer a hovel. 
Critics of this genius scoff at the splendid incom- 
pleteness they are incapable of understanding. 
What is Christendom but the half-finished work of 
Jesus Christ ? Here we behold His pure thought, 
His lofty ideals, His saving grace, struggling with 
hostile elements ; at a thousand points partially 
embodied, and yet painfully incomplete. We 
stand in the very midst of the mighty struggle for 
the incorporation of the Christian spirit and holi- 



THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 195 

ness, resisted on every side by ignorance, unbelief, 
and animalism. An unsympathetic eye can see 
only fragmentariness, disorder, disharmony ; but 
the sincere discern even in the crudities, blemishes, 
and apparently ineffectual strivings of Christian 
society the signs of the dawning of a great perfec- 
tion. Did we say " the half-finished " work of 
Jesus Christ ? The Christendom of to-day is the 
faintest beginning, the roughest outline, the 
merest hint of the grandeur of Christ's thought 
and purpose. And He shall complete what He 
has begun. The great Artist is not dead, leaving 
a torso ; He lives, He is the greatest power in the 
world, working mightily in our midst ; and He 
shall never rest until He has lifted the whole fabric 
of our mixed and perplexing civilization into the 
full glory of His thought, love, and righteousness. 
And the faith of Christ equally justifies itself in 
the experience of the individual. Christian people 
do not tenant the rookeries ; they do not furnish 
the hungry, homeless, hopeless classes ; they do not 
raise the bitter cry. The faith of Christ, sincerely 
tried, loyally obeyed, means bright faces, bright 
homes, bright children, bright everything, as is 
demonstrated on every side. And these humble, 
devout disciples vitalize all society, they are the 
bond of social order and the soul of the world's 
progress. Christianity fails in one place, in one 
place only ; and that is where it is never tried. 
Our leader can fulfill His gracious promise. So 
far as we have followed Him, He has made us 



196 THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 

forget that this is a wilderness at all ; He has 
filled our borders with the finest of wheat, sown 
the sand with smiling- flowers, suffused our sky 
with pleasant light, unsealed living springs of re- 
freshment, and made the common air sweet with 
the breath of heaven. This is the testimony of 
millions. 

2. If, then, the Gospel is not a failure, is the 
Christian Church in fault? It has come to be 
quite the fashion to impute whatever is unsatis- 
factory in the community to its infidelity and 
neglect. That the world should find the Church a 
convenient scapegoat is what might reasonably be 
expected ; but the surprising thing is that the 
Church has become her own bitter censor, lashing 
herself unmercifully for the existence of dark spots 
in the community. She takes herself to task for 
the abject foolishness of her methods, for her lack 
of sympathy, for her slothfulness, selfishness, 
pride, and worldliness, and concludes that the 
maladies and miseries of society would have been 
prevented, or long ago removed, had she only 
been wise and faithful. There is another side to 
the Christian Church than this, and one that it is 
high time to emphasize. She has reason, indeed, 
for humility before God, but no reason to blush 
for herself before the world. No other institution 
can compare with her for a moment in purity, 
charity, zeal, and sacrifice. Outside the walls of 
Rome is a vast mound consisting of the coarse 
broken pottery of antiquity ; as a matter of con- 



THE KEPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 197 

venience, the ancient Roman threw up this 
colossal heap of the rejected and shattered utensils 
of the household and of commerce. Are we to 
judge of ancient art by this rubbish heap ? Surely 
not. We judge it rather by the rich and beautiful 
vases, wonderful in amplitude, grace, and colour, 
which are the priceless jewels of our museums and 
palaces. And we do not judge the Church by the 
fractious clay which resists her ministry of truth 
and love, but by her delightful creations wherever 
the great Potter has had free course with passive 
clay. The Church of God on earth is crowded 
with vessels of honour fit for the Master's use. 
And the palace of our glorious King glows with a 
vast multitude which no man can number of 
transfigured shapes redeemed from the dust. We 
judge the Church by the millions of noble souls 
who, yielding to her redeeming and hallowing in- 
fluence, have been counted worthy of the high 
places of the perfect universe. 

Whatever were the frailties of our spiritual fa- 
thers, through the generations they present a 
spectacle of devotion and heroism, enthusiasm, 
and sacrifice unparalleled elsewhere. Against the 
mightiest odds they so cooperated with divine 
grace as to establish the kingdom of God far and 
wide as we see it to-day. The Church indulges 
in the habit of self-scorn that she may stir up her- 
self to greater endeavour and faithfulness ; but an 
excess of scourging is more likely to discourage 
and paralyze. If the Church is all she is repre- 



198 THE EEPEOACH OF THE GOSPEL 

sented to be of imperfection and failure, we may 
well begin to think that there is an organic cause 
for the melancholy result that we are not likely to 
remove. Amiel says truly, " By despising him- 
self too much a man comes to be worthy of his 
own contempt.' ' Which is true of a corporation 
as well as of an individual. We have, alas ! no 
room to flatter ourselves, to sit as a queen without 
sorrow ; we have abundant reason to be ashamed 
of our selfishness and sloth ; yet in the name of 
their God His people have done valiantly in seek- 
ing the salvation and welfare of the race, and it 
will best comfort and inspire them to glorify the 
grace that has made them always to triumph. 

When Christianity is blamed for these failures 
of civilization, it is forgotten that it deals with free 
agents, that its action is moral not mechanical, 
and that the efforts of the Church are qualified by 
that incalculable quantity — the human will. It is 
often argued as though a degraded district might 
be reclaimed as engineers drain a bog — so many 
workers, so much money, machinery, and time, 
and the task is exactly accomplished. The case is 
profoundly different. The soul possesses a strange 
power of refusing, withstanding, trampling upon 
the most gracious offers and opportunities. The 
Old Testament fully recognizes this. " Oh, that 
thou hadst hearkened to My commandments ! 
then had thy peace been as a river, and thy 
righteousness as the waves of the sea." Our 
Master fixes the blame here. " O Jerusalem, 



THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 199 

Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and stoneth 
them that are sent unto her ! how often would I 
have gathered thy children together, even as a 
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and 
ye would not ! Behold, your house is left unto 
you desolate." And the Acts of the Apostles 
repeatedly testify to the refusing power of men. 
" It was necessary that the word of God should 
first be spoken to you. Seeing ye thrust it from 
you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal 
life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." "And when 
they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, He 
shook out His raiment, and said unto them, Your 
blood be upon your own heads ; I am clean : from 
henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." 

The sad things of character and circumstance 
we deplore to-day are to be explained to a very 
large extent indeed by contempt of God's Holy 
Word, by hardness of heart, by willful closing of 
the eyes upon the light, by deliberately quenching 
the Spirit of grace. There are few amongst us to 
whom this word of salvation has not come in some 
manner, at some time, and yet many make the 
grace of God of none effect by a fatal choice. 
When Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his task was 
light and pleasant. He led the sheep to the pas- 
ture and they ate, to the brook and they drank, 
to the fold and they rested ; but, becoming the 
shepherd of Israel, he sighed under a far more 
difficult task. He might bring the people into 
green pastures, invite them to living waters, open 



200 THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 

to them a sheltering fold ; it remained, however, 
with them whether to eat, drink, rest, or not. 
They were men, not sheep ; and their wandering 
in desert and mountain was determined by their 
own bitter will. So the great Shepherd of the 
sheep is able, willing, yea, yearning to bless ; but 
He is neglected, resisted, scorned, and now, as in 
the days of His flesh, cannot do many mighty 
works because of unbelief. We refuse to believe 
that the dark spots of our civilization are to be ex- 
plained by the inefficacy of the Gospel or by the 
faithlessness of the Church ; primarily and chiefly, 
they are the result of the awful power that we 
possess to deny the solicitations from above and 
choose descending pathways. As Ruskin elo- 
quently laments, " There is no subject of thought 
more melancholy, more wonderful, than the way 
in which God permits so often His best gifts to be 
trodden under foot of men, His richest treasures 
to be wasted by the moth, and the mightiest in- 
fluences of His Spirit . . . to be quenched 
and shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I 
do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder 
often at what they lose." 

Let the outside world for once listen to our 
Master, follow His leading, obey His words, breathe 
His spirit, and instead of reproaching its Redeemer 
for its diseases and discontents, it shall exult, as 
did Israel in the ancient days, and as the sacra- 
mental host does to-day. " And the Lord gave 
unto Israel all the land which He sware to give 



THE REPROACH OF THE GOSPEL 201 

unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and 
dwelt therein. There failed not aught of any good 
thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house 
of Israel ; all came to pass." " For Jerusalem 
shall be built with sapphires, and emeralds, and 
precious stones : thy walls, and towers, and battle- 
ments with pure gold. And the streets of Jeru- 
salem shall be paved with beryl, and carbuncle, 
and stones of Ophir. And all her streets shall 
say, Alleluia ; and they shall praise Him, saying, 
Blessed be God, which hath extolled it forever" 



XIII 
THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 

The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sor- 
row therewith. — Prov. x. 22. 

THE ancients believed that the pyramids 
were so constructed that they cast no 
shadow ; but few things in this world are 
wholly free from shadows. Well-nigh all circum- 
stances and events, however propitious some may 
be, entail disadvantages. Absolute perfection is 
rare in any direction. Yet it is now our privilege 
to offer unqualified advantage, a gift without a 
drawback, a blessing that is an unalloyed joy. In 
its most definite sense, the blessing of the Lord is 
the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ ; 
and we hope to show that a truly Christian life can 
bring men good, only good ; that it implies no 
abatements whatever, but is a rich and an unadul- 
terated blessing. 

I. The Influence of True Religion upon 
Character affords a proof of this. Here emi- 
nently " the blessing of the Lord maketh rich." 
It is sometimes said that Christianity brings a mes- 
sage of salvation, rather than that it furnishes a 
code of morals. In a sense this is true. Think, 

202 



THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 203 

however, what salvation by Christ means. Salva- 
tion from what ? From that malign principle and 
power by which character is deformed and des- 
troyed ; salvation from pride, wrath, selfishness, 
ambition, impurity, and all the passions which un- 
righteousness implies. Salvation into what ? Into 
the divine principle and power by which character 
is exalted and transfigured ; salvation into the love 
of truth, justice, humility, purity, and charity. 
Our position is this — that in the faith and fellow- 
ship of Jesus Christ human character attains its 
last and brightest expression. On the banks of 
the Humber we have seen a vine growing in the 
open air. In the summer it put forth leaves, the 
fruit began to fashion, and one might have sup- 
posed that it was going to ripen into purple clus- 
ters ; but it never came to perfection : the grapes 
remained paltry and green, withering on the tree. 
A vine planted in the open air in the north of 
England is always a pathetic spectacle. How dif- 
ferent with the vine as it is seen growing in Italy ! 
Its branches are flung abroad as though in con- 
scious triumph, every leaf upon it is a poem, and 
the clusters gleam like purple constellations set in 
a firmament like unto an emerald. Here is the 
rapture of the poet, the dream of the artist, the joy 
of the vintner. Yet wide as is the distinction be- 
tween the vine of the Humber and the vineyards 
of Italy, the difference is yet infinitely greater be- 
tween character as it struggles in the chill air of 
secularism and as it ripens in the sunshine of Jesus 



204 THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 

Christ. " I am the true Vine, and My Father is 
the Husbandman. I am the Vine, ye are the 
branches : he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the 
same beareth much fruit." The true Vine is in- 
comparable in the wealth and beauty of moral 
fruition ; and the branches, sharing in His fatness, 
bear the richest fruits of holiness that ever ripened 
beneath the sun. 

It is retorted, There are as good people outside 
the Church as are found in it ! We readily con- 
cede that many most excellent people are outside 
religious communions. But this does not in the 
least invalidate the claim of the Church to be the 
prime inspirer of righteousness. Suppose one 
were to argue, " In the woodlands and forests are 
trees as beautiful as any found in our parks, in the 
meadows are flowers as delightful as any in our 
conservatories, the landscape outside has its glories 
which may successfully challenge the pride of the 
garden." Now no instructed person supposes for 
a moment that the fine things of the landscape 
sprang naturally where they are found. Few, if 
any, of these trees and blooms are indigenous to 
our island. Even the red clover of our fields was 
once a rare plant in a conservatory. The glories 
of the wood and meadow have escaped from the 
walled garden, and they would never have adorned 
the landscape had they not first been introduced 
and cherished by the gardener. So the goodness 
outside the Church of Christ is immensely indebted 
to the teaching, inspiration, and discipline of the 



THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 205 

Christian faith and fellowship through many gen- 
erations; and such goodness would never have 
been discovered outside the Church had it not first 
been in it. Fine moral qualities and characteris- 
tics that to-day disown all ecclesiastical associa- 
tions are nevertheless native to the soil of godli- 
ness ; and if they are not to degenerate, they must 
be replanted in that soil. The main inspiration of 
righteousness, whether included within the pale of 
the Church or found beyond it, is drawn from the 
spiritual doctrine of the New Testament ; and char- 
acter in its last perfection of strength, fullness, har- 
moniousness, and delicacy is realized in the closer 
fellowship of Him who is Himself the perfection 
of beauty. To adopt Dante's expression, 

Every good which out of it is found 
Is nothing but a ray of its own light. 

"And He addeth no sorrow therewith." We 
are bold to maintain that the gain in character 
in Christ is attended by no drawback. It implies 
no sacrifice of strength ; the active elements of 
mind and will are in nowise sapped by the passive. 
Our Master is foremost in the line of heroes, and 
He inspires His followers with His own strength 
and courage. The Christian character implies no 
sacrifice of tenderness. The passive qualities es- 
sential to the completeness of human nature are 
not invalidated by the active; multitudes follow 
in Christ's train who combine the tenacity of steel 
with the softness of silk. No sacrifice of self- 



206 THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 

respect is exacted. Whilst the Christian faith 
abases us for our sins, it assumes our greatness 
and respects our greatness at every step. No 
sacrifice of rationality is involved in Christian dis- 
cipleship. No error is greater than to suppose 
that our faith puts any arbitrary limit to reason ; 
the New Testament enlarges the human spirit 
without imposing upon it any narrowing or hu- 
miliating limitations. Nor are we called to make 
any sacrifice of practicability. Our aspirations are 
not mocked nor our strength wasted in the pursuit 
of unattainable standards. No sacrifice of indi- 
viduality is implied. True piety destroys none of 
the charm of personality ; on the contrary, it 
elicits, most fully, the special glory of the indi- 
vidual soul. And, finally, the moral ideal and 
discipline of the faith of Christ does not prejudice 
the humanness of its disciples. Whilst disclosing 
a higher world, it does not forget that we are 
citizens of this, and members one of another. 
Looking to Jesus, and simply following Him, the 
integrity of our spirit can suffer in no respect or 
degree. In His own character is nothing defect- 
ive or unbalanced ; nor is there in the believer 
who is complete in Him. 

A distinguished writer volunteers this statement : 
" I have lately been brought into touch with a new 
insect — an infinitesimal live thing — which is only 
to be found where there are orchids. The pain 
and irritation, the redness and swelling, which 
come from these particular pests are neither more 



THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 207 

nor less than horrible." So the new and gor- 
geous flowers, in which we find so much pride, 
bring with them a ghastly parasite to discount 
our joy. It is a parable of the whole natural life. 
Rarely do we acquire a treasure, but concealed 
somewhere within its folds is a secret sorrow. 
Our Christian faith is the glorious exception to 
this painful law of the worldly life. What an 
ethical paradise is the New Testament ! Moving 
from page to page, we are charmed by a host of 
lovely virtues and graces of character — patience, 
meekness, self-control, temperance, pureness, truth, 
gentleness, sympathy, love, and bewildering clus- 
ters of gracious qualities and perfections. We are 
wandering in a divine garden, where every path is 
embroidered with lilies, festooned with roses, and 
there is not a solitary parasite in the whole garden 
of God. " The blessing of the Lord maketh rich, 
and He addeth no sorrow therewith." 

II. The Influence of True Religion on 
Society and its Material Conditions is 
equally benign. "The blessing of the Lord" 
makes rich the community and its whole prac- 
tical life. For generations the faith of Christ has 
purified public life ; not a generation passes with- 
out some blighting thing passing with it. But 
must these reformations and regenerations be 
credited to the action of the Christian faith? It 
is alleged that a law of health is established in the 
very constitution of things, and that it is by virtue 
of this law that social evils are outgrown and 



208 THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 

eliminated. We are not thus persuaded ; we can- 
not believe that these profound moral diseases are 
extirpated by natural causes. Apart from the 
ideals and forces of Christianity, how long would 
it have taken for infanticide to have grown out of 
China? how long for cannibalism to have grown 
out of the South Seas ? how long for Sutteeism to 
have grown out of India? how long before the 
pariah would have challenged the Brahmin with 
the protest, " I also am a man " ? The fact re- 
mains that these cancers never do grow out ; they 
stubbornly persist and miserably consume the 
organism upon which they have fastened, except 
when arrested by sovereign antidotes from the 
outside. It is a fact of history that these and 
similar maladies cease only when they encounter 
the healing power of the Christian faith and life. 
The law of evolution may effect much in the realm 
of character when stimulated and sustained by the 
truth and grace of the Gospel ; it will do nothing 
for the extirpation of consuming moral maladies 
where that truth and grace are absent. 

Let us once again remind ourselves that through 
the knowledge of Christ we attain and retain the 
best things of our civilization. Alas, many 
amongst us are guilty of strange blindness and 
ingratitude ! They are eager to deny our debt to 
the faith of our devout ancestors, and ready to 
trace our blessings to any source but the actual 
one. One of Shakespeare's characters speaks 
thus: 



THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 209 

Bid her steal into the pleached bower, 
Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, 
Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites, 
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride 
Against that power that bred it. 



So to-day Englishmen dowered with manifold in- 
tellectual, material, social, and political blessing — 
blessing which surely springs from the power of 
godliness in the national life and history — are in 
haste to deny and despise the heavenly source of 
their blessing. Our pure domesticity, noble 
literature, opulent commerce, equal laws, age-long 
security, sovereign rule, and a vast body of public 
happiness, are honeysuckles ripened by the sun, 
which now forbid the sun to enter. Let us, how- 
ever, not forget the orb that has fostered and 
ripened our rich inheritance. "The lines have 
fallen to us in pleasant places, yea, we have a 
goodly heritage " ; and we will remember the sun 
that has created our summer, and glorify Him who 
has caused that sun to shine so brightly upon us. 
" Blessed be Thou, O Lord, the God of Israel our 
Father, forever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the 
greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the 
victory, and the majesty : for all that is in the 
heaven and in the earth is Thine ; Thine is the 
kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as head 
above all. Both riches and honour come of Thee, 
and Thou rulest over all ; and in Thine hand is 
power and might; and in Thine hand it is to 
make great, and to give strength unto all. Now 



210 THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 

therefore, our God, we thank Thee, and praise 
Thy glorious name." 

" And He addeth no sorrow therewith." We 
maintain that the faith of Christ works only good 
alike to the individual and the community. A 
distinguished writer criticizes thus the contention 
that religion has been an unmixed blessing to the 
race : " We may well think it unphilosophical and 
unconvincing to enumerate all the blessings which 
religion has bestowed, without compiling a list of 
the evils which it has inflicted ; to tell us how the 
Christian doctrine enlarged the human spirit, 
without observing what narrowing limitations it 
imposed ; to dwell on all the mitigating influences 
with which the Christian Churches have been as- 
sociated, while forgetting all the ferocities which 
they have inspired. The history of European be- 
lief offers a double record since the decay of poly- 
theism ; and if for a certain number of centuries 
this record shows the civilization of men's instincts 
by Christianity, it reveals to us in the centuries 
subsequent the reverse process of the civilization 
of Christianity by men's instincts." * We deny 
that Christianity has " a double record." We are 
not reduced to the sorry position of keeping the 
history of our faith by double entry, recording so 
much to its credit, so much to its debit, and then, 
after totalling the respective columns, to come to 
a conclusion as to whether, on the whole, it was 
worth having ; religion is not a matter into which 

1 John Morley, Essay on Turgot. 



THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 211 

fine calculations of less or more enter ; it has, in- 
deed, no place whatever for arithmetic. 

We repeat, we flatly deny that Christianity has 
" a double record." Ecclesiasticism has ; it has 
wrought both good and evil, as indeed the best 
things and institutions ever do when human in- 
firmity enters into them ; but the pure truth of the 
New Testament has in all ages been an unmixed 
blessing. To charge upon the doctrine of Christ 
and of His apostles the errors of the Church is as 
unphilosophical and unconvincing as it would be 
to charge upon commerce the follies of guilds, 
upon knowledge the prejudices of universities, or 
upon liberty the ineptitudes of parliaments. 
Christianity itself has no more " a double record" 
than the sun has. Following the kind of reason- 
ing in the quotation just given, how easy it would 
be to compile a list of the evils inflicted upon us 
by the sun ! We are told that sunlight promotes 
malarial fever, that too much sunshine makes the 
desert, and it is notorious that many suffer from 
sunstroke. But we know that light can do no 
wrong, and that the real causes of these terrestrial 
evils must be sought much nearer home than the 
sun. The sun has one record only — the sweetness 
of the morning, the splendour of the noon, the 
glory of the grass and flower, the harvest gold, 
the vintage purple, the lustre and loveliness of 
the world. So the gospel of love, righteousness, 
and peace has only one record ; it is a blessing to 
whatever soul may seek to live it, to every com- 



212 THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 

munity that loves and obeys it, and the desert 
place that welcomes it smiles back in the 
blossom of the rose. The discipleship of Christ 
does us good, and not evil, all the days of our 
life. 

III. The Precious Influence of the 
Christian Faith on Human Experience is 
the last instance we will adduce of the truth of 
our text. Here " the blessing of the Lord maketh 
rich." The New Testament has little to say about 
the world we figure on the map, or the worlds 
around us with which astronomy is concerned ; 
but it concerns itself largely with the world within 
us — the sphere of the spirit, the realm of thought, 
imagination, and feeling. As the ages progress 
this inner world, the world of self-consciousness, 
is ever seen more clearly to be the most important 
world with which we have to do. To enrich this 
world Christ came. " He who was rich for your 
sakes became poor, that ye through His poverty 
might be rich." He did not come to make us 
rich in gold, worldly power and fame ; He brought 
us treasures of heavenly wisdom, the pure gold of 
goodness, power to overcome the world, purity 
whiter than any fuller on earth can whiten, peace 
which this world can neither give nor take away, 
consolation and strength in sorrow, the hope and 
courage which are inextinguishable. How rich 
was Christ Himself in the treasures of the soul ! 
How rich were the first disciples in all spiritual 
wealth 1 How rich true Christians are yet in that 



THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 213 

interior peace, assurance, and joy, the price of 
which is beyond rubies ! 

Sceptics are fond of dwelling upon the infinite 
melancholy of the Christian faith. They avow 
that rarely is religion a consolation, but usually a 
perpetual source of inward unrest and alarm. The 
pains of the spirit endured by believers are terrible 
to contemplate ; only darkness, despondency, and 
despair. But with what authority do these critics 
speak? If we would be justly informed on such a 
question, we must appeal to men who know some- 
thing about it. Look into the Epistles for the re- 
flection of the experience of the primitive saints. 
So far as the contentment, victoriousness, and 
rapture of their spirit are concerned, they might 
have stepped on paths of velvet, feasted more 
delicately than nobles, been smothered with roses, 
and yet all the while they were in suffering and 
humiliation, a spectacle to men and angels. The 
power, triumph, and felicity of these primitive 
Christians are wonderful and indisputable. The 
Te Deum expresses no gloom in the experience of 
a later age. The old Methodists were conscious 
of a tranquillity, brightness, and an ecstasy which 
irradiated their darkest days, and found glowing 
expression in their favourite songs. 

The winter's night and summer's day 
Glide imperceptibly away, 

Too short to sing Thy praise. 
Too few we find the happy hours, 
And haste to join those heavenly powers, 

In everlasting lays. 



214 THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 

Nietzsche predicts that "the religion of the 
future will be the religion of golden laughter." 
The religion of the future, then, will be the religion 
of Jesus Christ. No better definition could be 
given of it. Laughter devoid of sorrow. That 
does not bespeak the vacant but the noble mind. 
That is without stain or folly. That is not like the 
crackling of thorns under a pot, but steady as a 
star. The laughter that comes last. Such are the 
peace and cheerfulness of the pure in heart. 

"And He addeth no sorrow therewith." The 
faith of Christ has often been reprobated because 
it has much concern with matters of pain and sad- 
ness. It is alleged that the doctrines of religion 
have caused incalculable misery by dwelling on 
such themes as sin, death, and retribution ; yet is 
this no argument against the wholesomeness and 
joyousness of the faith. It has much to do with 
the morbid side of human nature and the sad 
aspects of human life, but it does not create these 
aspects ; it seeks wholly to soothe and heal. 
What an impeachment could be trumped up 
against the Royal College of Surgeons ! What 
gloomy books they publish ! What cruel instru- 
ments they handle ! What bitter medicines they 
mix ! What ghastly operations they perform ! 
If we could once abolish doctors, it would seem as 
though we should restore the gaiety of nations ; 
but we know how absurd all this is. The office 
of the physician is to heal, and the painful incidents 
of his ministry are necessary accidents which cast 



THE ABSOLUTE GOOD 215 

no shadow on the profession. Thus religion has 
to do with dark things — to trouble the mind, alarm 
the conscience, pierce the heart ; yet it does not 
create the dark things, its ministry is one altogether 
of mercy, recovery, and blessing. 

Let me, then, commend to you the laughter in 
which is no heaviness. Buy the gold that has no 
alloy. Feed on the honey that has no sting. 
Drink the wine that has no dregs. Press to your 
bosom the Rose of Sharon that has no thorn. 



XIV 

THE SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

And Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bare bur- 
dens, and fourscore thousand that were hewers in the mountains. 
— i Kings v. 15. 

ALIKE as to its structure, furniture, and 
services, the temple of Solomon had a 
spiritual and an evangelical signification. 
Our Lord institutes analogies between Himself 
and the temple, and the apostles repeatedly refer 
to the sacred palace as typical of the Christian 
Church. The temple on Zion, with everything 
relating to it, was full of prophetic significance ; 
and we do no violence to the text when we see in it 
an anticipation of a large class of evangelical work- 
ers and of a considerable branch of evangelical 
work. Tens of thousands to-day " bear burdens," 
are " hewers in the mountains " — are servants of 
Christ, working in wild, difficult, and distant 
places ; bending themselves to obscure tasks and 
the very drudgery of things that the living temple 
of a regenerate humanity may be built. About 
these particular workers of the kingdom we pro- 
pose now to speak ; to recognize the vastness and 
seriousness of their service, the greatness and 
certainty of their reward. 

216 . 



SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 217 

I. The Initial Service in the Salvation 
and Uplifting of Man is Peculiarly the 
Vocation of the Christian Church. The 
initial work of the temple-building was wrought 
by these " burden-bearers " and " hewers in the 
mountains " ; they came before the masons, car- 
penters, and clever artificers ; in fact, the building 
of the glorious shrine was impossible without the 
toil of these humble workers. And here we see 
foreshadowed a great truth for ourselves. If ever 
the wild forests of heathendom are to be builded 
into noble nationalities, and the rough blocks of 
humanity at home and abroad lifted out of the dirt 
and polished after the similitude of a palace, it will 
be because religious faith and passion animate an 
army of "burden-bearers" and "hewers in the 
mountains " to begin at the beginning and deal 
with men in their lowest estate. Note these two 
things : 

I. The initial work of uplifting the race is spir- 
itual Spiritual faith and work are the antecedents 
of all civilizations. They who affirm that religion 
grows out of civilization are contradicted by all 
history ; if history teaches anything, it teaches that 
the sovereign civilizations sprang out of a spiritual 
root of some kind. The great nationalities of an- 
tiquity originated in, and were vitalized by, super- 
natural conceptions. Their mythologies might be 
" religion run wild " ; but it was religious thought 
and feeling that presided over their birth and un- 
folding. It is clear that the modern civilizations 



218 SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

originated in a spiritual faith, even the faith of 
Christ. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians : " For 
I delivered unto you, first of all, that which also I 
received, how that Christ died for our sins accord- 
ing to the Scriptures." Here, then, the apostle 
began — with the declaration of the love of God, 
the pardon of sin through the death of His Son, 
everlasting life through union with Him. It was 
a strange starting-point; no mere statesman or 
philosopher would have thought of thus beginning 
to create a new world, yet history has vindicated 
the apostle. Out of the Gospel of God's grace 
through Jesus Christ, preached in Italy, Greece, 
and Spain, in the forests of Germany, on the moors 
of Britain, has arisen that higher and happier con- 
dition of things we so proudly share. Spiritual 
men ever have been, and are, the pioneers of civ- 
ilization. 

2. The initial work of uplifting the race is by 
spiritual workers beginning at the basement. Christ 
Himself was the first burden-bearer and hewer in 
the mountains. He began with the people, and 
with whatever was lowest among the people. He 
was not manifested at a great political centre like 
Rome, at a great intellectual centre like Athens, 
or at a great ecclesiastical centre like Jerusalem ; 
but He appeared in the obscure village of a de- 
spised province. " Jesus went about in all Galilee, 
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the 
Gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of 
disease and all manner of sickness among the peo- 



SPADE-WOBK OF THE KINGDOM 219 

pie." He did not attempt the work of the orator, 
philosopher, or scholar ; He began with Galilee, 
its peasants and pariahs. When the Master sent 
forth the twelve, " they departed, and went through- 
out the villages, preaching the Gospel and healing 
everywhere." They did not primarily concern 
themselves with the upper tiers, they were not 
commissioned as the carvers and goldsmiths of 
civilization ; they appealed to the people. The 
apostles, after our Lord's resurrection, obeyed the 
same genius, following closely in His steps who 
" came to seek and to save that which was lost." 
And the obscure, hard, rough, forbidding, elemen- 
tary, and unrequited work involved in raising sav- 
age nations, sunken masses, lapsed classes, the 
ignorant, disinherited, and forlorn of all kinds, has, 
through nearly two thousand years, been mainly 
the work of the Christian Church ; and, had it not 
been done by it, would never have been done 
at all. 

We have in our midst an organization known 
as " The Ethical Society." Its aim is to show that 
morality can be cultivated without religious sanc- 
tions and inspirations ; and it addresses itself 
chiefly to cultured people through literary, scien- 
tific, and philosophical lectures. But this Society 
does nothing at the basement. It does not appeal 
to the multitude, establish missions in working- 
class neighbourhoods, nor send out missionaries 
to the heathen. Its sphere is purely intellectual 
and exquisite ; it does not contemplate the raw 



220 SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

material, and the rough toil necessary before that 
material is made susceptible of higher education. 
Strictly speaking, they begin after the rude and 
painful work has been done ; they are carvers, 
gilders, sculptors, polishers ; they manipulate the 
friezes, statues, and ornaments of the social struc- 
ture ; they ceil with cedar and dye with vermilion 
the upper chambers, they paint and golden the 
finials. They are not lumbermen or quarrymen ; 
they let the jungle and the mountain severely 
alone. And in this they are discreet. They lack 
the serious qualifications indispensable for popular 
initial service. They have not our conception of 
the preciousness of the raw material. The cross 
of Christ throws a strange splendour on our hu- 
manity. It reveals the commonest paving-stone 
to be striped jasper, fit for the city of God. Our 
conception of the grandeur of the lowliest member 
of the race is simply unique. They lack our dyna- 
mite. " I am not ashamed of the Gospel : for it 
is the power of God unto salvation to every one 
that believeth." They are destitute of our won- 
derful tools : the jewelled drill that pierces even 
to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow, 
and is quick to discern the thoughts and intents 
of the heart ; the hammer that breaks in pieces the 
rocky heart ; the axe sharper than a two-edged 
sword ; the electric cutters, the diamond teeth, the 
pneumatic tools and energy which we find in the 
spiritual doctrine of our Master. They have none 
of these profound and incisive instruments. They 



SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 221 

are without our lifting power : the sense of the 
righteous God, the attraction of the Cross, the 
power of the world to come. Dainty instruments 
and gentle touches suffice for the ornamentation 
of prepared material, but they are unavailing with 
stubborn quarries and oaks of Bashan. 

Let us, then, remind ourselves that the initial 
work of uplifting and blessing men and nations is 
peculiarly ours. Statesmen, scholars, moralists, 
artists, poets, follow in due order of sequence ; but 
the individual, the class, the tribe at the bottom of 
the scale, are our special charge. We have the 
great truths which appeal to the conscience, affec- 
tions, and will. We urge mighty motives of hope 
and fear peculiar to ourselves. If we neglect this 
work, it will go undone. If, however, we are 
faithful here, everything is done. The spiritual 
worker at the basement, directly uplifting the ig- 
norant, the degraded, the barbarian, by imparting 
to them higher knowledge, creating in them a 
nobler conscience, touching their heart with a pure 
love, strengthening their will to righteousness, is 
lifting the whole social superstructure higher in 
the heaven. The new world will not be built from 
the top, not by social or intellectual aristocracies, 
but through the purification and ennoblement of 
the masses, the depth. 

II. The Initial Work of the Church of 
God Implies Immense Sacrifice. The burden- 
bearers and hewers in the mountains encountered 
great trials and made severe sacrifices that the 



222 SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

stone and timber necessary for Solomon's temple 
might be forthcoming ; and the living temple of a 
regenerate humanity is possible only as evangel- 
ical workers are prepared greatly to deny them- 
selves. And tens of thousands of such workers 
are to-day making manifold sacrifices for the 
world's salvation. 

The service recorded in the text involved exile. 
They must be willing to leave their home, and 
work on a distant field. Many workers for God 
make great sacrifices of home life ; many hours 
that they would joyfully spend with their families 
they consecrate to church work for the good of the 
people. And what of the missionaries? "And 
Solomon sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a 
month by courses : a month they were in Lebanon, 
and two months at home." But the willing serv- 
ants of a greater than Solomon are ready to cross 
wide seas and suffer expatriation for years, for a 
lifetime. We estimate too lightly the reality and 
cost of this sacrifice. 

It was hard and disagreeable work. There was 
little romance, poetry, or taste about it. The 
craftsmen who built the temple had much that was 
delightful in their task — fine forms, rich colours, 
burnished surfaces, precious gems ; it was a joy to 
work in such material ; yet to bear burdens and 
hew timber was a rough task, unlighted by a 
poetic spark. If this world is to be saved, what a 
vast amount of drudgery must be done ! Common- 
place, colourless, insipid, vulgar work of visiting, 



SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 223 

collecting, organizing, teaching. Alike at home 
and abroad much evangelical action necessarily 
offends the philosophic mind, the critical taste, the 
romantic, the dignified, the fastidious. Let us re- 
joice that great companies of Christian people 
find blessedness in the drudgery of the Church for 
Christ's sake, for souls' sake. They unmurmur- 
ingly set their hand to humble, disagreeable, mo- 
notonous, insipid service — instructing the igno- 
rant, caring for the young, comforting the sorrow- 
ful, helping the sick and unfortunate, the savage 
and slave. 

It was unpopular work. Much about it was cal- 
culated to offend, and there would be none too 
many candidates for it. The apostles were un- 
popular as they sought to turn the world upside- 
down. Luther exasperated tranquil critics as he 
fiercely wielded axe and hammer. Wesley's en- 
thusiasm was accounted vulgar. Huxley was 
angered by the demonstrative methods of General 
Booth. And various orders of evangelical work- 
ers are despised by the supercilious. Missionaries 
are unpopular in several quarters. They are de- 
nounced in the interests of aestheticism. The 
literary critic regards it as sacrilege that the 
poetic things of Paganism should suffer. The 
missionary must not blast the rock lest he injure a 
picturesque situation ; nor fell the tree, although a 
upas-tree, lest he frighten the gorgeous birds 
which build in its branches, or damage the rare 
orchid that clings to its trunk. Livingstone was 



224 SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

resisted because he let light on the slave trade ; 
and his brethren to-day are traduced as they de- 
nounce the opium trade with China or the atroci- 
ties of the Congo. The missionary is not popular 
at the Foreign Office. Evangelical work of the 
initial order will often appear to lack in refinement, 
prudence, and dignity. Men of exquisite taste 
and feeling in Solomon's time would turn with 
impatience from the rough, noisy workmen of the 
quarry and jungle, to admire the cunning work in 
gold and the lily-work of the temple pillars ; and 
many to-day who are enthusiasts in the higher 
education have little sympathy with the ruder 
methods and associations of the initial work which 
alone renders all the rest possible. 

These workers were willing to be ignored. 
" And Solomon had threescore and ten thousand 
. . . and fourscore thousand." In this sum- 
mary fashion are they lumped and dismissed ! 
Solomon's name was writ large all over the struc- 
ture ; Hiram, king of Tyre, secures honourable 
mention ; Adoniram, who was over the levy, gets 
his name in : we know absolutely nothing, how- 
ever, of these burden-bearers and hewers ; they 
are impersonal, arithmetical, unhistorical. Ac- 
cording to Victor Cherbuliez, " The hardest thing 
for mankind is to become a cipher " ; but we may 
boast that tens of thousands are content to be re- 
duced to ciphers if only they may glorify God 
and serve the best interests of the race. 

Let us not to-day forget the humble work which 



SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 225 

makes possible the splendid things of nations and 
Churches. In the Valley of Chamounix stands a 
most interesting monument. It presents two fine 
figures, that of Saussure, the famous scientist, and 
Balmat, the guide, who were the first pair to reach 
the summit of Mount Blanc. Saussure was a far 
greater man intellectually than Balmat, yet the 
scientist would never have scaled the glorious 
height except for the assistance of the little peas- 
ant. So, with a fine instinct, the Swiss have im- 
mortalized the two in noble statuary ; for together 
they gave mankind a new world of science and 
romance. But it is a rare thing that he who 
makes a grand thing possible gets on the monu- 
ment ; the great man requires it all for himself, 
and must be left alone in his glory. So our eye 
is usually full of the famous reformer, the eloquent 
pastor, the munificent benefactor ; of the Solo- 
mons, Hirams, and Adonirams of our times ; and 
we hardly give a thought to the host of silent, 
patient, unnamed, and unrecorded drudges who 
are down below delving at the foundations, or far 
away on the mountains groaning as they fell the 
stubborn forest. 

Yet we dare to believe that, in the end, every 
true though obscure disciple will secure direct and 
personal recognition. To-day we are lost in a 
crowd, but revelation assures us that we are not 
to abide ciphers forever. " And I entreat thee 
also, true yokefellow, help those women which 
laboured with me in the Gospel ; with Clement also, 



226 SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

and with other my fellow labourers, whose names 
are in the book of life." Names, not always num- 
bers. The sublime things of philanthropy and 
evangelization were impossible without the bur- 
den-bearers and hewers, and these shall not always 
be forgotten. He who has given a cup of cold 
water in the Master's name shall be distinguished 
and approved. " Each shall receive his own re- 
ward, according to his own labour." 

III. The Splendid Hopefulness of this 
Initial Work. Out of the rugged mountain 
and wild wood these strenuous workers brought 
the wondrous temple. Coarse, dull, forbidding as 
their toil might seem, it at last took shape as 
the palace of God. " Great stones, costly stones, 
hewed stones," formed the foundation of the house. 
" The doors were also of olive-tree ; and he carved 
upon them carvings of cherubim, and palm-trees, 
and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold." 
"And the cedar of the house within was carved 
with gourds and open flowers." The pillars were 
adorned with rows of pomegranates, and gar- 
landed with lily- work. "And he garnished the 
house with precious stones for beauty : and the 
gold was gold of Parvaim." The shrine was " ex- 
ceedingly magnifical," but all grew out of the 
work of pick, spade, axe, and crowbar. It is a 
parable of what is now being done by an army of 
devoted workers in the Church of God. Our un- 
distinguished brethren are occupied with raw ma- 
terial, they are subject to distressing conditions, 



SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 227 

the result of their strain and sacrifice is often 
ambiguous and disappointing, yet is their work 
grander than they know; they build a living 
temple of moral splendour which no Nebuchad- 
nezzar shall spoil, a New Jerusalem no Titus shall 
destroy. 

Consider the precious contributions which are 
being made towards the perfecting of the race and 
the glory of the future by the messengers of Christ 
in India, China, and Japan. A brilliant writer, 
not so long ago, published a most pessimistic and 
despairing forecast of the future as it relates to the 
inferior races. " The day will come, and perhaps 
is not far distant, when the European observer 
will look round to see the globe girdled with a 
continuous zone of the black and yellow races," 
who will absorb our trade, circumscribe our in- 
dustry, humiliate our greatness, spurn our faith, 
and trample on our art and literature. 1 Now, we 
cannot for a moment believe in such predictions. 
So far from these people being a menace to civili- 
zation, we see in them splendid possibilities which 
the missionaries shall realize. The world's un- 
gotten wealth is chiefly in these mighty popula- 
tions. Think of the possibilities of the Chinese ! 
Their commercial aptitude, political capacity, lit- 
erary aspirations, and moral sympathies excite 
most the wonder of those who know them best. 
Think of the receptive, plastic, energetic, versatile 
genius of the Japanese ! Think of the subtle in- 

Pearson, National Life and Character. 



228 SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

tellect and manifold gifts of the Hindu ! We must 
not permit temporary friction to blind us to God's 
vast and final design concerning these nations. 
We must persist to see in them — illuminated, re- 
generated, Christianized — the glory of the world 
to be. The voice of the Lord will disclose these 
forests full of olive, sandalwood, and cedar; the 
burden-bearers of the Lord will find in these 
remote quarries all manner of precious stones for 
the walls and battlements of the city of God. 

The heathen and savage tribes are also full of 
promise, rich in undeveloped faculty. A compe- 
tent observer has predicted that, whatever may be 
the music of the future, the Kaffir will be the 
musician. Richard Semon writes : " I dare to 
maintain that the love of artistic ornament is 
deeper and more general in the poor and naked 
savages of New Guinea than in ourselves." Can 
we believe that all these endowments are vain? 
that these tribes are destined to become the curse 
of the future ? Where did we spring from ? 
Once a few burden-bearers and hewers of the 
mountains landed on this foggy isle in the North- 
ern seas, and, with a great faith, began their un- 
promising work of attempting to Christianize a 
horde of painted barbarians ; and out of their 
desperate undertaking has arisen the foremost 
civilization of the world ! We will not believe that 
the barbarous and semi-barbarous races of to-day 
are destined to become the plague of the future. 
If we believe in the rationality of the universe, in 



SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 229 

the mission of the Lord Jesus, in the promise of 
revelation, we cannot believe in anything of the 
kind ; it is far more sane to believe that once 
more the calling of the Gentiles will enrich the 
race gloriously. The botanist reminds us that, if 
we carefully dissect one of the numerous leaf buds 
on the winter trees, we shall find that the leaves of 
the coming summer are already present ; all that 
the summer's light and heat will do is to increase 
their size. We need only note the incipient in- 
tellectual, moral, and spiritual faculties of the 
savage to find promise of a glorious future. The 
gifts of God are here already, they wait unrealized ; 
all that is needed is the light and power of the 
Gospel to stimulate and ripen the latent yet bud- 
ding wealth of the backward races. The intel- 
lectual dilettante sniffs at the humble, toiling mis- 
sionary ; yet the despised delvers and hewers of 
God will bring to light treasures beyond all ruby- 
mines, malachite-quarries, pearl-fisheries, and the 
sands of gold which dazzle the adventurer. 
Glorious day, indeed, when all that has been put 
into mankind shall be happily brought out ; when 
the Yellow Peril, the Black Peril, and all other 
coloured perils shall prove crowning civilizations. 
" The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the 
fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to 
beautify the place of My sanctuary ; and I will 
make the place of My feet glorious." 

Upon the lapsed classes of our great cities we 
look with confident hope. Our Master saw the 



230 SPADE-WORK OF THE KINGDOM 

magnificent possibilities of humanity at the worst. 
Any one appreciates a picture by Rembrandt 
when it is exhibited in a gold frame in the National 
Gallery ; but a fine eye is requisite to detect a 
masterpiece beneath dirt and grime in a canvas 
confounded with the lumber of a cellar. Our 
Lord recognized the grandeur of humanity, not 
when He beheld it in a gold frame in a palace, but 
in the destitute, the disinherited, the hopeless. 
When we were yet without strength, plunged in a 
gulf of dark despair, every jewel shaken out of 
our crown, every purple rag torn from our 
shoulders, He recognized our essential worth and 
flew to our relief. He has imparted His genius to 
His people. He has caused them to discern the 
intrinsic glory of the savage, the slave, the sot ; 
and, however the cynic may mock, these rejected 
ones are perpetually being restored to life and im- 
mortality. The sculptor can discern in the jagged 
quarry of Carrara galleries of beauteous imagery ; 
in the wild forest of Lebanon the architect can see 
palaces and temples ; and since Christ opened our 
eyes compounds and slums dazzle us with the 
most splendid possibilities of life and destiny. 



XV 
THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 

He shall not be afraid of evil tidings : his heart is fixed, trust- 
ing in the Lord. — Ps. cxii. 7. 

SERIOUS minds are specially liable to anx- 
iety. A certain class is little troubled about 
the future ; it takes events for granted, 
waits for something to turn up, is equally indiffer- 
ent whatever comes to pass. Such is the temper 
of the barbarian, and of those not far removed 
from him. Without a serious conception of life, 
they are without apprehension ; devoid of anxiety 
because they lack rationality. The civilized, with 
aspiration and the sense of responsibility, are the 
natural subjects of solicitude ; and a high state of 
civilization, like that which we happily share, 
brings its special peril. Life with us is exceed- 
ingly complex, and things are delicately poised, 
the possibilities of vicissitude are immensely 
heightened, and the consequences of change are 
frequently most serious. Not rarely we seem 
separated from poverty, helplessness, and despair 
only by a sheet of tissue-paper, and anxiety ap- 
pears the most natural thing in the world. Yet, 
despite all this, we wish to show that the solicitude 
which distracts and consumes is wholly unreason- 
able in Christian men. 

231 



232 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 

I. The Anxiety of the Christian Par- 
takes of the Nature of the Foolish Ter- 
ror of the Child. The nervousness of little 
children is often extreme. Every article in the 
moonlight appears to them as ghostly, every pass- 
ing footfall betrays a robber, the darkness teems 
with monsters. What fantastic misconceptions 
and agonies of suspense, what torture of listening 
and cold sweats the little ones suffer when left 
alone in the darkness ! Their heart throbs faster 
and faster, until at last, overwhelmed with name- 
less terror, they sob or shriek. But in later years 
we know how gratuitous all this suffering was, 
how groundless our fears, how absurd the whole 
situation created by the fevered imagination. The 
position of the scared child, however, exactly 
represents that of man in this present existence. 
This life is encompassed by the darkness of the 
night. We have not yet seen daylight — only 
starlight, moonlight ; and in the obscurity we are 
haunted by vain suspicions. This life is also the 
childhood of existence. We are of yesterday, and 
know nothing. So we misconstrue, misjudge, 
and disquiet ourselves in vain. 

An infant crying in the night : 

An infant crying for the light : 

And with no language but a cry. 

Yet we now look back on the dark nights of our 
childhood and smile at our baseless fears ; so we 
are persuaded that the age will come when we 
shall look upon the shadows and spectres of the 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 233 

present, and know the utter folly of the misgivings 
which to-day are so real and terrible. 

What in the meantime shall be our strength 
and consolation ? The best answer to this ques- 
tion is found by asking another. What was our 
best comfort in troubled childhood ? The certain 
reply to which query is, The knowledge that our 
father or mother was not far away. If we could 
discern the faintest sign that they were about, or 
catch a note of their strong, sweet voice, the 
ghosts vanished and we fell on sleep. Our 
strength and consolation amid the darkness and 
mystery of time are the same. " Your heavenly 
Father knoweth." These are the magical words 
to soothe the faithful, to convict the unbelieving 
of unreasonableness and sin. In a letter of 
Lafcadio Hearn we read, " Anxiety is a poison ; 
and I do not know how much more of it I could 
stand. It was a friend's treachery that broke me 
up recently. ... I don't know that being 
brave would serve me much." This wail of one 
with no faith in God we can understand ; the 
despair of atheism is reasonable. If the universe 
is not regulated by a wise and gracious Spirit, if 
no Providence shapes the individual life, and all 
things fall out by chance in the dark, there is 
ample justification for mistrust and apprehension ; 
that the atheist should be a pessimist is natural, 
logical. But it is altogether another thing when 
we once believe in the heavenly Father ; from 
that moment uneasiness and foreboding become 



234 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 

inconsistent and irrational. Surely He will de- 
fend, succour, guide, and save us. Whatever the 
darkness of life, the threatenings of circumstance, 
or the mystery of death, cling to the thought of 
the fatherhood of God until the day dawn and the 
shadows flee away. 

Let us, however, apprehend the fatherhood of 
God as revealed in Christ Jesus. "Grace be to 
you, and peace, from God our Father and from 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." And as St. 
Paul thus writes in the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
St. Peter uses identical words in his first letter. 
This is the God whom we are called upon to adore 
and trust. It is of the first importance that we 
thus apprehend the fatherhood of God ; if our 
faith in that doctrine is to become the basis of as- 
sured confidence, we must do so. The attempt is 
being made, with increasing frequency, to found 
the divine fatherhood in Naturalism. A distin- 
guished poet who recently passed away wrote to 
the effect that, in dying, we might safely trust to 
sink into His bosom " who created the rose." 
This will not do. " The invisible things of Him 
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
being understood by the things that are made, 
even His eternal power and Godhead " ; but the 
fatherhood, with its infinite wealth of meaning, has 
been revealed only in the Son of the Father's love. 
Beside the rose, nature has produced abundant 
growths which sting and poison ; and the dubious 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 235 

mind is far more apt to fasten on the nightshade 
rather than the rose, the hemlock rather than the 
violet. Nature furnishes a ground for faith, also 
an apology for mistrust. But there are no ob- 
scurities and contradictions in the revelation of 
God in Jesus Christ. He who has loved us even 
to the gift of His well-beloved Son will surely not 
permit us to lack any good thing. We may sink 
with absolute confidence into His bosom who gave 
us the Rose of Sharon. Surely He will never leave 
nor forsake us. Not a fear must infest our heart, 
a murmur escape our lip, nor a tear dim our eye. 
II. The Anxiety of the Christian Par- 
takes of the Terror of the Savage. Be' 
cause the savage is ignorant of the laws which 
govern the system of nature, he becomes the vic- 
tim of many wild and distressing fancies. The 
storm and eclipse, the lightning and thunder, in- 
spire him with boundless terror, because he inter- 
prets them by an arbitrary and a gloomy imagina- 
tion. The case with the civilized man is totally 
different. He has come to understand the beauti- 
ful laws which regulate the movements of the stars 
and elements ; and the scientist regards with per- 
fect confidence and satisfaction, admiration and 
delight, the very phenomena which occasion the 
savage the ghastliest terror. "They also that 
dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at Thy 
tokens ; Thou makest the outgoings of the morn- 
ing and evening to rejoice." Even gracious sig- 
nals are misinterpreted by the untutored mind. 



236 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 

The anxiety of the Christian has its origin in a 
defective faith in the divine government of the 
world, and is so far kindred with the fear of the 
superstitious heathen. This is the teaching of our 
Lord : " For after all these things do the Gentiles 
seek." The anxious mood is essentially heathen. 
Could we once believe in our very heart that God 
rules, that He rules wisely, that He rules delicately 
for the individual as generally for the universe at 
large, we should regard even dark signs with serene 
confidence ; but, with a defective sense of His 
gracious and distinguishing sovereignty, we mis- 
construe His tokens, and, instead of the morning 
and evening rejoicing, they are profaned by mur- 
murings and lamentations. 

We do in so many words believe in the divine 
government, in its theoretic and executive perfec- 
tion ; yet in actual life we are easily staggered, 
and are incapable of resting in the precious articles 
of our Christian faith. A recent traveller describes 
the singular manner in which the superstition of 
the Chinese asserts itself, notwithstanding their 
modern knowledge. " The Chinese were apt pu- 
pils of both Arab and Jesuit teachers, and the 
Board of Astronomers is one of the most important 
of the government departments to-day. They 
compute eclipses and calculate solar and lunar in- 
cidents with precision for the official calendar or 
almanac ; but, when the moment of the eclipse 
arrives, the members of the honourable board as- 
semble in the courtyard in state robes, and fran- 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 237 

tically beat tom-toms to scare away the dragon 
which is about to swallow the sun or the moon." l 
Strange mingling of science and fanaticism ! 
Such is the strength of superstition that, when the 
crisis arrives, all their verified scientific knowledge 
is practically ignored, and the university scholar 
becomes once more a barbarian beating a tom- 
tom. 

Is it not exactly thus with the people of God ? 
The fact of the divine government is a truism with 
us ; repeatedly have we verified the faithfulness of 
the promise ; we are entirely persuaded of the 
wisdom and benignity of the heavenly providence : 
yet when the testing moments of life come, when 
the darkness of the eclipse is in the sky, we prac- 
tically fall back into moods of atheism. Coper- 
nicus lapsing into Caliban is far less surprising 
and distressing. So difficult is it in a sudden 
crisis to realize the trustworthiness and blessed- 
ness of that belief to which we gave our sanction 
in calmer hours. "They feared as they entered 
into the cloud. . . . And Peter said . . . 
not knowing what he said." Staggered by a 
strange providence, dazed by an unexpected blow, 
we speak unadvisedly, act inconsistently with that 
faith which is nevertheless our genuine conviction. 
" I was dumb, I opened not my mouth ; because 
Thou didst it." This is the best. " Dumb with 
silence" until the soul recovers itself. 

III. The Anxiety of the Christian Par- 

1 Scidmore, China, the Long-lived Empire. 



238 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 

TAKES OF THE NATURE OF THE BASELESS DIS- 
TRESS OF THE BRUTE. As a grand rule, the beast 
of the field is wiser than the saint ; it is true to the 
law of its being, enjoys the sensation of the mo- 
ment, and mechanically completes its destiny. 
But, placed in unusual circumstances, it displays 
baseless and fruitless anxiety and trepidation. 
We read that, " though the beavers in the Zoolog- 
ical Gardens are fed every day and have nothing 
to fear from the weather, the instinct of winter 
storage is as strong as ever ; whether this prudence 
is accompanied by a rational knowledge of the 
probable inadequacy of their stock to meet their 
natural wants is another matter. If their sense of 
quantity bears any proportion to their industry 
and skill in engineering, they must be full of anx- 
iety and misgivings, for the few branches given 
them are only in make-believe ; and they are 
wholly dependent on their captors for daily food." 
Is not this sketch of the beavers fussily occupied 
with engineering a few branches as though their 
whole sustenance and safety through the winter 
depended upon their exertions, when in fact a 
superior power was providing for them, a lively 
parable of the anxiety of the saints as depicted by 
our Lord in Matthew vi. 25, 34, whilst all the time a 
supreme and loving Power, with largest outlook 
and fullness of resource, provides for all their 
need ? They are excited, worried, exhausted by 
solicitude about secular needs, as though uncon- 
scious of the magnificent and tender government 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 239 

which holds as sacred the most trifling detail of 
human life. 

In regard to many of the darker fears which 
torment us we are painfully irrational. On the 
railway we may often see cattle flying before a 
whiff of steam as though a wolf or leopard were 
pursuing them. Are we any wiser ? Most of us 
have sniffed ruin in bits of vapour, and suffered 
martyrdoms in frantically seeking to escape them- 
Elihu Burritt tells the story of a driver who had 
to take a herd of cattle through a long, dark, 
wooden tunnel. Some knots in the planks had 
dropped out, and through these orifices the sun 
made bars of light in the darkness. The animals 
shied at these rays, then leaped over them, finally 
making a terrible hurdle-race of it and coming out 
at the other end covered with foam and blood. 
All unnecessary, all absurd I How much wiser 
are we? Do we not take fright at harmless 
things ? Are we not troubled by what is really 
heaven's light? Are we not agonized by diffi- 
culties purely imaginary? Do we not construe 
advantages into barricades ? Do we not rush 
through dark providences in panic and paroxysm ? 
Are not many of us anticipating with dread that 
last dark tunnel lighted by streaming rays of 
glory ? "So brutish was I, and ignorant ; I was 
as a beast before Thee." 

Irrational — just that; and confused reason is 
more dangerous than disordered mechanism or 
baffled instinct. Our reason is our glory, and 



24:0 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 

therefore are we ashamed whenever we put our- 
selves to pains and perils by yielding to craven 
fear. Noble crews are courageous in the storm, 
brave soldiers self-possessed in the battle ; and we 
all lose caste in our own eyes whenever we fail to 
play the man. Carlyle teaches " that the extent 
to which we have put fear under our feet is a good 
measure of manhood " ; and it is an indubitable 
sign of spiritual manhood when we have put fear 
under our feet and resolutely keep it there. " For 
God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness ; but of 
power and love and discipline." " No spirit of 
craven fear hath God bestowed on us, but of 
might, and of love, and of self-control." ! Panic 
and cowardice do not pertain to the ideal man of 
God, but calmness, strength, and moral discipline. 
We pray that God will forgive our sins ; we ought 
to plead that He will forgive our alarms, for these 
are sins also, dishonouring to ourselves and to 
Him. 

Fearfulness and trembling are every way to be 
deprecated. Fear has a direct tendency to impair 
the reason. The moment we give place to it we 
fail in attention, wisdom, and justness of judg- 
ment. We speak of one in a panic as having 
" lost his head " ; that member contains the brain, 
and the condition is sad indeed if that organ is 
missing. In the absence of calmness, reflection, 
logic, anything may happen to us. Fear robs the 
soul of sunshine. It mars the days of health by 

» A. S. Way, The Letters of St. Paul. 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 211 

thoughts of distant sickness ; spoils the pleasant 
hours of friendship by apprehensions of separation 
and bereavement ; blights the rare season of pros- 
perity by prophesyings of loss and misery. It is 
a real misfortune to make less by one the summer 
days of the soul. 

Fear eats out the heroism of the heart, destroy- 
ing the fibre and force so essential when the day 
of real trial comes. We have wasted on imaginary 
evils the reserve power of life. And gratuitous 
fear has a strange power to bring upon us the 
very evil we deprecate. It diverts attention from 
the real perils against which we ought to be on 
guard, whilst it provokes evils which naturally we 
have little reason to apprehend. A confident, 
bold front awes the foe ; if we are afraid of a dog, 
it bites us. 

We have every reason for absolute confidence 
in God our Saviour. " For as many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For 
ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto 
fear; but ye received the Spirit of adoption, 
whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Let us brood 
and pray until we get the doctrine of the Divine 
Fatherhood out of our creed into the heart. Let 
us be sure of adoption into His family, of participa- 
tion in His image, of our destination in His king- 
dom, and all the sadness of solicitude will leave us 
forever. Anxiety about this world and worlds 
unknown will be simply impossible, because we 
shall know and feel it to be absolutely unreason- 



242 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF FEAR 

able. " And He said unto them, Why are ye 
fearful ? have ye not faith ? " (Mark iv. 40). " Let 
not your heart turn coward" (John xiv. 27). 
Nothing more misbecomes us than to live anxious 
lives. With Christ in the storm we are in port. 
As the old poet sings : 

There is no storm but this 
Of your own cowardice 
That braves you out. 
You are the storm that mocks 
Yourselves ; you are the rocks 
Of your own doubt : 
Besides this fear of danger, there's no danger here ; 
And he that here fears danger, does deserve his fear. 




XVI 

LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 

And thou mayest add thereto. — I Chron. xxii. 14. 

AVING done his utmost to facilitate the 
building of the temple, David now com- 
mends the great work to the faithfulness 
and enthusiasm of his son. The text is brief,- yet 
it implies great principles worthy of close consid- 
eration by. all workers for God and mankind. It 
has a pathetic side, also an aspect of consolation 
and encouragement ; and it is in the consideration 
of both that we get a true estimate of the duty of life. 
I. The Pathetic Side of Our Text. The 
limitation of the individual. David could not pro- 
ject and accomplish the whole scheme by virtue 
of his own power and resource. He at once dis- 
covered that he must take Solomon into partner- 
ship ; Solomon forthwith found it necessary to 
enlist the sympathies of the princes ; whilst the 
princes, in turn, were constrained to appeal to the 
people. It is surprising how soon we exhaust our 
personal power and resource, and must look be- 
yond ourselves if cherished purposes are to be 
brought to pass. Limitations of one sort or an- 
other condition us all. We can play only a part, 
a small part, and play that part only for a little 
while. 

243 



244: LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 

We are subject to constitutional circumscriptions 
from which is no escape. We work happily and 
effectively only within the lines prescribed by our 
special natural endowment. We see this in the 
greatest men. The mathematician who wished to 
know what Paradise Lost proved disclosed his own 
limitation. It proved that a cell was wanting in 
his brain. Sir Humphry Davy, passing through 
the Louvre, exclaimed, " What an extraordinary 
collection of fine frames ! " showing that one may 
be acute in science and blind to art. When 
Turner, the prince of painters, took to writing 
poetry, the result was not happy. Occasionally a 
many-sided genius arises ; but, as a grand rule, 
the " all-round" man is a myth. And if this is 
the case with outstanding talent, it is even more 
markedly the case with the average man. 

One science only will one genius fit ; 
So wide is art, so narrow human wit. 

We may easily get into a niche for which we 
were not made, attempt work for which we have 
no aptitude, undertake tasks in which Nature her- 
self forbids that we should excel. God has de- 
clared our narrow, predestined sphere in the lines 
of our body and brain ; and it is most pathetic to 
see a man struggling to get out of his skin and 
attempting to be what God did not intend him to 
be, to do work that was never given to him to do. 

We suffer circunistantial circumscriptions. Da- 
vid possessed gifts and cherished aspirations which 



LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 245 

the trend and pressure of events did not permit 
him to exercise and satisfy. The sword was 
thrust into his hand, when he coveted the harp ; 
he was entangled in politics, whilst he burned to 
sing ; and empire-building became his duty, whilst 
temple-building was his passion. Our body does 
not furnish utterance for the fullness of the spirit ; 
our present life is not nearly so wide, various, and 
rich as the soul. Some birds in their wild state 
are without song, although they possess highly de- 
veloped song-muscles, which they turn to account 
as soon as favourable circumstances allow. Have 
we not muscles without music? Do not we con- 
sciously possess powers, faculties, possibilities, and 
aspirations, which are cramped and denied by 
organization and circumstance? It is a strong 
argument for a future world that we are much too 
big for this. We are not here to develop our 
greatness, only to prove our faithfulness ; and 
therefore are we stewards of a " few things." Let 
us prove faithful, and God shall grant us a richer 
organ, a wider sphere, and "many things." But 
for to-day the environment dominates the soul, 
denying its vast and manifold longings. 

Mutability and mortality complete our restric- 
tions. "So David prepared abundantly before 
his death." Life's little day thrusts into small 
room our large and manifold speculations. A 
celebrated artist painted conspicuously in his 
studio a death's-head, not out of a morbid temper, 
but that the fugitiveness of opportunity should be 



246 LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 

kept in constant remembrance. Whether or not 
we thus grimly remind ourselves of the fact, in- 
firmity, age, and death quickly mar cherished 
dreams. " We are strangers and pilgrims, as all 
our fathers were." 

All this is just as true of the higher service of the 
race as of intellectual, political, and material serv- 
ice. We are hedged in by manifold necessities, 
and can effect only here a little and there a little. 
The ablest must learn humility ; for the richest, 
strongest, wisest, and most gifted are the victims 
of infirmity and disadvantage, whilst the average 
man can do so little that it is easy for him to 
think it not worth the doing at all ; it seems less 
than nothing, and vanity. We recently read the 
story of a devoted missionary, and the record of 
his noble life brings home to the reader most 
painfully how seriously the work of God is at- 
tended by disappointment and disenchantment. 
How endless the difficulties which beset and 
crippled this heroic worker ! how disheartening 
the learning of the language, the unhealthiness of 
the climate, the fanaticism of the people ! What 
tedious preparations, faint beginnings, provoking 
postponements, ambiguous successes, melancholy 
failures ! We lay such a biography down with a 
sense of the extreme difficulties which must be 
conquered, and of the incompetence of the most 
gifted agents to achieve anything apparently ade- 
quate. But this is true of every life and endeav- 
our. The faded leaf dropping from the autumn 



LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 247 

tree seems to have rounded its life and fulfilled its 
destiny much more completely than does frail, 
baffled humanity sinking into the dust. Our life 
seems only a striving, our work a fragment. 

II. The Aspect of Consolation and En- 
couragement Presented by our Text. " And 
thou mayest add thereto." The insignificance of 
the individual worker is lost sight of in the social 
law which consolidates and conserves the hum- 
blest endeavour. In two particulars the text is in- 
structive and inspiring. 

It reminds us of the continuity of human service. 
David did what was possible to him, and then 
transmitted his undertaking to his son. A won- 
derful social law gives coherence, continuity, and 
permanence to human action. Leo Grindon 
writes : " Nothing so plainly distinguishes be- 
tween man and brutes as the absolute nothingness 
of effect in the work of the latter. Unless the coral 
isles be deemed an exception, of all the past 
labours of all the animals that ever existed there 
is not a trace extant." These creatures are 
sagacious, they are intense, they have toiled un- 
weariedly from the beginning of time ; but their 
work is as ephemeral as themselves. No law of 
sequence, perpetuation, and accumulation gives 
unity and permanence to their creations. If all 
the creatures perished to-day, nothing of their 
almost infinite activity would survive. It is al- 
together different with man. Frail and fugitive 
as the individual may be, he yet has the power 



248 LIMITATION AND COOPEKATION 

and privilege of bequeathing his small personal 
contribution to the general and ever-increasing 
wealth of the race. A physical law in the animal 
world economizes the experience of the individual 
for the benefit of the species ; but we enjoy the 
immense advantage of a social law which preserves 
and perpetuates in an extraordinary degree the 
services and sacrifices of the humblest individual. 
Continuity and conservation prevail in the 
■intellectual world. The glorious things of our 
literature, science, and art are legacies of our 
gifted ancestors which have come to us through a 
long series of generations who have each added 
thereto. Other men have laboured, and we have 
entered into their labours. Discoveries in science 
are the result of the research and brooding of many 
students through centuries. Our inventions in 
industrial life are the outcome of the dreams of 
many dreamers. The architecture of Assyria, the 
astronomy of Chaldea, the pottery of Etruria, the 
wisdom of Egypt, the moral science of Palestine, 
the art of Greece, the jurisprudence of Rome, are 
with us to-day powerfully moulding contem- 
poraneous thought and life. Bees have been busy 
through countless summers, yet no fragment of 
their store survives ; but swarms of golden bees, 
from Homer to Tennyson, from Plato to John 
Ruskin, have filled a million cells in the British 
Museum with sweetness. Although the birds 
have piped from the morning of time, no phono- 
graph preserves their music; but the songs of 



LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 249 

ancient minstrels stir our hearts to-day. Through 
millenniums ants, beavers, and birds have built 
cunning structures, yet no monument attests their 
skill and energy ; but a thousand splendid cities 
full of treasure are the heirlooms of the human 
race. 

In national life the continuity of service con- 
spicuously obtains. "One generation shall praise 
Thy name to another, and shall declare Thy 
mighty acts." Whether we praise His name or 
refrain, our national wealth and greatness have 
been treasured and transmitted through many 
generations. Our fathers bequeathed us this 
great empire, created and defended by their toils, 
sacrifices, and sufferings. Heroes, the larger part 
of them uncelebrated, vindicated our civil rights 
on bloody fields. Our religious freedom and 
privilege were won by a noble army of martyrs. 
" Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the 
man; we shall this day light such a candle by 
God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be 
put out." Thus perishing at the stake, Latimer 
cried to his fellow martyr. Our vast empire, with 
its glory and blessing, is the sum-total of the con- 
tributions of a few spendid spirits, but chiefly of 
millions of obscure patriots who added infinites- 
imally to its knowledge, righteousness, and happi- 
ness. 

In the religious sphere the conservation of 
power and effort is simply absolute. No Church 
is the creation of a great genius, or the creation 



250 LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 

of an aristocracy of ability and saintliness ; but 
each Church is the sum-total of millions of minute 
contributions made by modest men and women 
altogether unhistoric. It is said that from every 
leaf of a tree a fine thread strikes, running along 
the branch, down the stem, into the root ; and 
when the leaf falls, this slender fibre remains, giv- 
ing increasing bulk and strength to the tree year 
by year. So Christians drop unrecorded into the 
grave, like leaves into the dust ; but each member, 
departing, adds a vital fibre to the organism, and 
the accumulation of these minute increments 
gives increasing strength and splendour to the 
Church of God which, like a tree of life, hastens 
to overshadow the nations. 

Let us beware of despising our action and in- 
fluence because they appear inconsiderable. He 
was the man with one talent who buried it, and 
the lesser gifted are always most tempted to 
ignore themselves ; yet, if the main multitude 
with the one talent are unfaithful, what will be- 
come of society left to a few geniuses ? True, we 
soon lose sight of any little contribution we make 
to the common good, but really that is of no con- 
sequence. The African proverb shrewdly ob- 
serves, " The meat may be boiled into shreds, but 
it is still in the pot." We readily lose sight of the 
survival of our gift or endeavour, but it none the 
less enriches the general life of mankind. We are 
foolish, indeed, to fret because we cannot keep the 
results of our work in sight ; if that work were 



LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 251 

truly done, it may be left with absolute confidence. 
We were told the other day of a child who, by 
sundry pathetic economies, had got together a 
shilling which she was persuaded to put into the 
Post Office Savings Bank. Coming out of the 
office, the mother noticed that the little one was 
fretting. "What is the matter, dear?" inquired 
the mother. Said the child, " That clerk has 
mixed my shilling with a lot more, and I shall 
never see it again„" We are strangely like the 
child, as we fret over our vanishing efforts in the 
flux of things. Let us wipe our tears. Put your 
contribution into the treasury of the King, what- 
ever it may be ; and be sure that you shall, in due 
season, receive your own with usury. 

Let us also remember that, though our day of 
service is short, and we pass like shadows, yet our 
work abides. The Hindu proverb pointedly ap- 
peals to us : "If you die, the world will not be- 
come a skeleton." No, it will not ; after our de- 
cease the sun will rise as bright as ever, the bells 
hurry the toiler to his task, boys will cry the 
papers in the crowded streets, buying and selling 
will briskly continue, marrying and giving in 
marriage, laughter, and tears. The world will 
not become a skeleton ; its eyes will be as bright 
as ever, its brain as active, its hands as full. The 
world will survive us, survive us for long ages, 
and whatever we put into it of true thought, pure 
feeling, gracious impulse, will live in the uplifted 
character and civilization of countless generations. 



252 LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 

We appear only as phantoms, our utmost work as 
an unconsidered trifle ; but in the solidarity of 
the race we mysteriously become universal and 
immortal. 

We are reminded of the complementariness of 
human service. What David could not finish was 
completed by his son. What is missing in one is 
found in another ; individual deficiency is supplied 
by comrade or successor. Each true servant of 
God furnishes a segment, and when these multi- 
tudinous segments are pieced by the supreme 
Hand they form a vast and perfect circle. 

The multitude of teachers, utterly unlike each 
other in so many respects, unconsciously concur 
to bring out the whole truth. " Now this I say, 
that every one of you saith, I am of Paul ; and I 
of Apollos ; and I of Cephas" ; yet the threefold, 
nay, the thousandfold ministry, is necessary to 
bring out the infinite truth. Each teacher pre- 
sents the jewel at a particular angle, eliciting a 
sparkle not otherwise revealed. He has his 
special theme, peculiar point of view, and char- 
acteristic style of treatment. We may rebel 
against our personal limitations, attempting sub- 
jects and methods not native to us ; but such dis- 
content is unreasonable, and can only issue in 
failure. Let each teacher humbly accept himself, 
and be content to transmit the heavenly light with 
the tint of his individuality, as the great Head of 
the Church has ordained. Let us also welcome 
faithful men of all orders of thought and style. 



LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 253 

Infinite harm is wrought by exclusiveness. If the 
messengers of Christ are not exactly to our taste, 
we suspect and depreciate them. Serious injury 
is done to the Church of God by narrow prefer- 
ence and unsympathetic criticism. Yet teachers 
of no one style can express the infinity of the 
Gospel, or meet the practically infinite differentia- 
tions of the human mind. Amongst the great 
company of the prophets, each true to God and 
His Word, each with his individual appreciation 
of truth and grace, each with his unique style of 
setting it forth, the world gets the fullness of the 
blessing, of the Gospel. The beauty of the world 
is the aggregation of millions of incompletenesses ; 
the music of the world is the outcome of millions 
of dissonances ; and the glory and efficacy of the 
Church of Christ are the issues of the marshalled 
multitudinousness of incomplete and often ap- 
parently contradictory gifts and organs. Who 
am I that I should hint dislike of any instrument 
my Master sees fit to use? And, on the other 
hand, if my Master condescends to use my 
singular gifts, let me dismiss self-discontent and 
be deaf to the criticisms which discourage and 
silence. 

A multitude of workers, individually unlike, de- 
lightfully cover the whole field of service. " The 
League of Pity " fascinates some, the " Royal 
Humane Society" others. Schools for the Blind, 
Deaf, Dumb, and Crippled, have each earnest 
advocates. Some are enthusiastic on the Blue 



254 LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 

Riband, others on the White. " Homes " of a 
hundred different kinds have their warm admirers 
and generous contributors, who think their par- 
ticular institution of absorbing interest. "Hos- 
pitals," " Associations/' "Societies," "Asylums" 
for the sick, young, aged, destitute, and dying 
engross the sympathies of a host of humanitarians 
and evangelists who have little in common. 
Medical, Prison, Industrial, Deep-sea Fishing, 
Railway, Stable-boys, Prison-gates, Missions and 
a crowd more of diverse agencies seek to deal 
with the sin, suffering, sorrow, and necessities of 
various classes ; and around each enterprise of 
blessing gather sympathetic souls, as filings 
around the magnetized steel. It is simply won- 
derful how Christian people are moved to take up 
special kinds of work, some kinds being very 
special indeed. An advertisement sets forth that 
a certain Sheffield firm are " makers of eccentric 
blades." It is easy to understand that a straight 
blade would sometimes be useless and an ec- 
centric one indispensable. The Church needs 
such blades, and it has them ; but, so far from 
complaining of this originality and versatility, let 
us recognize in it the action of the divine Spirit 
constraining into His service souls of every order 
of gift and aptitude, and touching them sometimes 
to strange issues, that a world far too disordered 
to be set right by any particular agent, programme, 
or instrument may yet be reached and saved. As 
geologists, astronomers, chemists, and many other 



LIMITATION AND COOPEEATION 255 

workers in nature together complete the circle of 
sciences, so the various servants of Christ and 
humanity, actuated by the sovereign Spirit, min- 
ister to the manifold needs of the race, completing 
the sublimer circle of infinite charity. " Moreover, 
there are workmen with thee in abundance, 
hewers and workers of stone and timber, and all 
manner of cunning men for every manner of work." 
Let them, then, strengthen each other's hands. 

Workers of the different spheres, industrial and 
intellectual, political and educational, secular and 
sacred, must remember how essential they are to 
each other, and how they complete each other. 
An Asiatic story relates that, once upon a time, 
four travellers spent a night in a forest, and agreed 
that one of them should keep watch by turns while 
the others slept. The first watcher was a carpen- 
ter. By way of passing the time, he took his axe, 
and, out of the stem of a tree, fashioned the form 
of a woman, shapely in figure and comely in face. 
Then he awoke one of his comrades, and lay down 
to rest. The second watcher was a tailor ; and 
when he saw the wooden woman lying bare on 
the ground, he produced his work-basket and bun- 
dle of stuffs, and clothed her handsomely from 
head to foot. Then he, too, resumed his slumber, 
after having aroused the third of the party, who 
was a jeweller. And the jeweller was struck by 
the sight of the fair and well-dressed female form, 
and he opened his caskets, and decked her with 
rings, necklaces, and bracelets. Then he called 



256 LIMITATION AND COOPERATION 

the last of the party, who was a holy man, strong 
in prayer and incantation, and went to sleep. 
And when the fourth watcher saw the wooden 
woman, so well dressed and decked, he set to 
work, and by spells and prayers turned her wood 
into flesh and blood and inspired her with life. 
Just then his three companions awoke, and gazed 
with wonder and admiration at the lovely creature 
who stood before them. Simultaneously each of 
the four travellers claimed her as his wife : the 
carpenter because he had framed her ; the tailor 
because he had dressed her ; the jeweller because 
he had adorned her ; and the holy man because 
he had given her life. A fierce dispute arose 
amongst them, during which the fair bride van- 
ished from their sight. So, by the combined ac- 
tion of craftsman, politician, philosopher, and 
theologian must beauty, love, and purity rejoice 
the earth. Each has his special sphere and service : 
the industrialist supplies the material elements 
which are the basis of society ; the economist robes 
it ; the philosopher adorns it with intellectual gold 
and gems ; whilst the theologian gives vitality to 
all the secular and intellectual workmanship of the 
age, and without whom all craftsmen, clothiers, 
and goldsmiths must be in vain. Let there be no 
quarrel amongst reformers, secular and sacred, lest 
their grand object fail ; but let them work together 
sympathetically and hopefully until the community 
shall be all glorious within, whilst its dress through- 
out shall be of fine needlework and wrought gold. 



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